Love is Blind
by SplendentGoddess
Summary: She'd had a promising future as a powerful miko and healer, until tragedy rendered her both powerless and sightless. He was a bastard hanyou son living on the human side of town, but at least he was rich thanks to his estranged father. Bored, he bought the noodle shop he always frequented, wanting something to do. Guess who also always eats lunch there?
1. Chapter 1

Merry Christmas! And Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Yuletide, Saturnalia...I feel like I'm forgetting something. See, this is why _Happy Holidays_ makes sense. It's not a "war on Christmas" to acknowledge that there are other winter holidays _in addition to_ Christmas.

But who cares about political mumbo jumbo when you're here to let your mind escape from all that, yeah?

This story universe takes place in modern Japan (or at least what's supposed to be Japan, so forgive me if a few minor details are Americanized) and youkai are like people and live in the cities, but there's segregation to a point. It's unofficial, and illegal for businesses to actually discriminate, but youkai and humans just tend to stick to their own kind.

As is standard with most of my stories that ultimately contain sex scenes, there's a more X rated version of this story available on MM and AFF, but this version is no less enjoyable as a whole, so I leave that entirely up to you.

Oh, and for those of you who'd expressed a desire to see this year's Christmas story be a continuation of Possession, I wanted to let you all know that after I already decided on the idea for this year's Christmas story I _did_ think of the perfect way to make both next year's Halloween AND Christmas stories take place in the Possession universe. So I'm afraid you'll have to wait until next year, but now you've at least got something definitive to look forward to.

And okay okay, maybe one day I _will_ write more in the 'Secret Santa' universe, since soooooooo many of you want me to continue that storyline, but it's going to have to wait until I get a few more standalone ideas knocked out first. In the meantime, enjoy this new universe, that I will _not_ be expanding beyond this story, but don't worry, I made sure to wrap the whole thing up with a pretty bow at the end.

Oh, and PS, please forgive (and let me know about, if you want to) any typos I missed. It's twelve noon on Christmas day as I'm writing this a/n addition, and I still have to finish wrapping up the story 'cause it's not quite finished yet, so I will be posting it as soon as it's finished without the luxury of a final proofread. At least it's not two weeks late, yeah? Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter One

"Another bowl."

"Please?"

Inuyasha rolled his eyes.

"Another bowl, _please_ ," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Sango only grinned.

"There, now, was that so hard?"

"Just gimme the damn ramen," he replied, but with a huge grin revealing his fangs as he tried not to laugh.

Sango couldn't contain her own mirth, and laughed as she handed her new boss yet another bowl of beef ramen.

"That'll be eight hundred yen," she said, still giggling, earning another eye roll from the white-haired man.

"I'd say you could deduct it from my salary, but I don't take a salary," he said.

"Oh yes you do," Miroku chimed in as he emerged from the back kitchen with a fresh tray of barbecued pork that he put into the empty slot in the food counter just as Sango was scooping up Inuyasha's bowl of ramen. "It's just in the form of ramen. Ramen you used to _pay_ for," he stressed, though the sparkle in his indigo eyes revealed the line cook was only teasing.

"Hey, I didn't have to buy this place, you know," Inuyasha stated in self-defense as Sango handed him his third bowl of ramen that hour. "And I think the fact that I don't pocket any profit more than makes up for my eating habits."

"What profit?" Sango asked with a snort, speaking so casually because at the moment she, her husband, and their boss were the only three people in the tiny establishment.

"As long as you get your paychecks, what do you care if I'm losing money on this place?" Inuyasha asked in turn as he sat down in the back of the third of only three booths that lined the wall opposite the food counter and began slurping his beloved noodles.

"He's got a point there," Sango, the head chef – in actuality, she and her husband were the only two employees – said to Miroku in a joking tone before disappearing back into the kitchen.

 _Mushin's Noodles_ used to be owned and operated by Miroku's uncle Mushin, back in the day. While the place looked a bit rundown, because Mushin had bought an older building and had never fully refurbished the place, the food was _phenomenal,_ his own personal recipes which Sango and Miroku followed to the letter. After years of being told by friends and family that he should open a restaurant, he had, and it had been the right decision, all things considered.

Living the dream, Mushin had taken a chance and gotten a loan to open up the humble noodle restaurant, quitting his old job to work in his restaurant full time. It wasn't _just_ a ramen shop, although Mushin's Noodles offered four different flavors of ramen, but there was actually a wide variety of noodle dishes to choose from, from udon and yakisoba to Chinese style lo mein. The noodles themselves weren't made from scratch on the premises, there was no time for that, but Mushin _had_ insisted on always using _fresh_ noodles, and his broths were all made from scratch with fresh ingredients, not seasoning packets. While some of the meats they used were frozen, he'd made sure they all came from good sources, and the vegetables were fresh from local farmers whenever possible.

Business had been quite well for over ten years, Mushin being so busy not long after opening that after only the first couple of months he'd had to bring in Miroku and Sango to help out because it'd already become impossible to do everything all on his own. Unfortunately, eventually, as strip malls were built and competition moved in in the form of cheaper, chain ramen shops, he'd slowly but surely watched his business dwindle away.

It wouldn't have been as big of a worry if he'd only risked losing his restaurant to the bank, but not having qualified for a regular business loan, he'd actually used his house as collateral in the beginning, and while he'd gotten a good chunk of it paid back while business was booming, he still owed. So it wasn't his noodle shop that had the mortgage against it, but his family home, and losing that was _not_ an option.

Mushin's Noodles had originally been closed on Mondays, giving everyone a much needed day off every week, but in an effort to stave off profit losses, and with Sango and Miroku's agreement, Mushin had temporarily switched them to being open seven days a week, but the extra profit had barely covered Sango and Miroku's extra pay, not to mention the extra work had burned them all out in short order, so they'd gone back to being closed on Mondays. It had been inevitable, then, and they'd all known it. Keeping Mushin's Noodles open was a losing battle, his beloved tiny restaurant a slowly sinking ship.

It had eventually gotten to the point where the place barely made enough money to break even, which would've been fine if he had been running the restaurant for the hell of it and had been independently wealthy otherwise, but with the restaurant being his only source of income the past-due bills had been piling up. Paying bills for his home one month, and restaurant the next, was no way to keep things going, and he'd already cut corners at home like letting his cellphone and television go. Cutting corners at the restaurant, like purchasing cheaper ingredients, had _not_ been an option, which had earned him even more respect from his already most loyal customer.

Unbeknownst to Sango and Miroku at the time, Inuyasha had loaned Mushin money more than once over the last couple of years, 'loaned' not really being the right word because the hanyou had always told Miroku's uncle not to worry about it. He'd been going to the shop from just about day one, having wanted to try it when he'd first seen it open, and besides the food turning out to be _awesome_ he'd also appreciated how Mushin had treated him just like any other customer, despite being a hanyou in a human city, and despite Mushin himself being a reiki user.

Inuyasha had been able to sense it in him easily. Same with Miroku, and while Sango had no reiki she came from a family of taijiya, yet they had both accepted him without question when they'd come on board, just as Mushin had.

For Inuyasha, delicious noodles and a welcoming atmosphere had been more than enough to make him a regular fixture in the place year after year, and what Mushin might've lost in customer revenue from racist humans seeing a hanyou in the place and going elsewhere Inuyasha had more than made up for with his own near daily purchases. So when the time had finally come that Mushin had, regrettably, made the decision to sell – saving his home had simply been more important than saving his business and he'd needed the money to pay off his overdue bills _or else_ – it had been a no-brainer for the wealthy hanyou to buy the place himself.

Inuyasha had _tried_ to just pay off Mushin's mortgage, at first, but the aging monk wouldn't hear of it, and he'd also made a valid point when he'd pointed out how he'd still need a monthly income to pay his regular bills at home, which the restaurant was no longer providing, yet he couldn't get himself a different job while needing to help Miroku and Sango take care of the restaurant because he couldn't expect them to do it all on their own. Mushin had originally hired them to take over the front of the house and kitchen duties for him, only trusting family with his secret recipes, but Mushin had always handled the managerial duties himself and neither Sango nor Miroku had any experience with actually _running_ the place; they just worked there.

Inuyasha had conceded, then, that the best thing for Mushin was to sell...to him. Especially once he'd caught wind that a few other potential buyers were interested in the spot, but were planning on firing Sango and Miroku and turning the restaurant into something else.

That was simply unacceptable.

And so he'd bought it, just a little under two months ago, paying Mushin every yen needed to keep his home plus a little something extra to keep him going while looking for a new job, while at the same time _saving_ both Miroku and Sango's jobs...and he'd continued to be a playful thorn in their sides ever since, although the raises he'd given them both _more_ than made up for it, they often teased.

Inuyasha looked up from his noodles as the door opened and a familiar, pleasing scent drifted up to his nose.

"Kagome!" Miroku greeted cheerfully from his place standing near the register at the end of the food counter.

The young woman in question smiled brightly at the sound of his voice.

"Hi Miroku," she greeted cheerfully, her red and white cane lifted up as she walked with confidence towards the register.

She'd been coming to Mushin's Noodles for the last two years now, herself, and knew the place inside and out by that point, so she knew precisely where the few tables were and where the front counter was to place her order without accidentally bumping into anything along her way.

"The usual, Kagome?" Sango asked, the taijiya-turned-chef reemerging from the kitchen at the sound of her husband's greeting.

"You know me so well," the younger woman answered with a giggle.

Inuyasha's ears flicked at the sound. He'd always loved her laugh. He sighed quietly, not intending for her to hear him, but she wasn't standing that far away, plus she had very good hearing for a human.

Kagome immediately turned around at the sound, and if it weren't for the fact that he knew she was blind behind those dark sunglasses she always wore Inuyasha would've sworn she was looking right at him. Her lips curved up into another brilliant smile.

"Is that who I think it is?" she asked with a teasing edge to her voice, confident she was right.

"Guilty," Inuyasha replied, glad she couldn't see his blush. Miroku's smirk indicated that _he'd_ noticed, and the hanyou shot him an evil glare, which had the young monk/cook stifling a laugh.

Receiving her bowl of udon soup from Sango, after handing Miroku the exact cash Kagome carried her bowl across the small room and towards the back corner booth, where the hanyou sat with his back against the wall so that the entire restaurant was in his line of sight, the front door across the room from him, the food counter to his right. Now, though, all he could see, hear and smell was Kagome. Even the half eaten bowl of ramen sitting directly in front of him had lost its appeal by comparison.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked, in regard to the other side of the booth he was occupying, and while she couldn't see his smile she could hear it in his voice when he answered with "It is now." Smiling as well, she had a seat.

Sango and Miroku both grinned like idiots but tried their best to ignore the pair, especially when a few more customers entered the shop. With their chatter with the new customers becoming background noise to our couple in the third booth, it was as if they were all alone when Kagome broke the growing silence between them.

"So tell me the truth, you only bought this place so you could have all the free ramen you wanted," she joked, Sango having informed her the last time she was there that the man who had always been their number one most loyal customer had just single-handedly saved the restaurant from closing, by becoming its new owner and manager.

Kagome and Inuyasha had chatted casually a few times over the last two years, enough for her to know him on a friendly acquaintance kind of level. It'd all started when, on her first time going to the noodle shop alone, he'd seen her coming and had opened the door for her. She'd recently started a new job nearby and her boss – whom she'd gone on a couple of dates with in junior high though now they were just friends – had recommended Mushin's Noodles as a good place for her to have lunch, Hojo having walked with her there the first few times until Kagome was confident she knew the route between there and work.

That first day without him, Kagome had felt both empowered and nervous as hell, but Inuyasha's kindness when he'd not only opened the door for her but had then offered to carry her food to her table for her had instantly put Kagome's mind at ease. He'd then proceeded to ask her where her 'boyfriend' was, but not in an accusatory tone; he'd sounded genuinely curious, and perhaps a bit concerned, and with crimson cheeks she'd explained that Hojo was _not_ her boyfriend. Not any longer, at least.

She'd thanked Inuyasha for his kindness that day, but that had been that until, around her fifth or sixth time having lunch there, she'd recognized his voice as he came in to place his order after she was already there and she'd braved jokingly speaking up with, "Let me guess, beef ramen."

At Sango's snorted laughter Kagome had instantly known it'd been the right thing to say, especially after Inuyasha's faux indignant "Hey! _Sometimes_ I have _chicken_ ramen," before he'd broken down into laughter as well.

Snapping himself back into the present moment, in answer to her teasing yet legitimate question, Inuyasha shrugged, an automatic response despite knowing she obviously couldn't see his body language, before admitting, "I've just really become quite fond of this place over the years, plus Sango and Miroku kind of grow on you."

Kagome giggled again at that.

"They do indeed."

Scrunching up her nose in the most adorable way, she then said, "I just hope you don't end up losing too much money. As much as I and a few other people love this place, it doesn't seem like it does enough business to stay open, which is why I guess Mushin had to sell it in the first place."

"Yeah," Inuyasha agreed. "But I've got plenty of money thanks to my father being filthy rich," he explained then, "so buying this place was literally a small price to pay, when Mushin told me he had to sell, and I really don't care of it doesn't make a year-end profit. Besides," he added, "it actually comes pretty close to breaking even. There'd be no way to make a living running this place if I needed the monthly profit from it to pay all my home bills, too, but it made enough last month that I didn't have to dump any more of my own money into it to pay all of _its_ bills. I think for the most part it'll literally pay for itself, and if I have to chip in every once in a while I can afford that no problem."

"That's good," Kagome replied in relief. "I would've hated for your heroic gesture to just end up hurting you too in the end. And I wanted to say thank you, for buying it. I'd have also hated to lose my favorite lunch spot and be forced to learn a new one."

Thinking about it a moment, she added, "Though I'm surprised to hear you're rich and still favored a little hole in the wall place like this one. What made you start coming here in the first place?"

She didn't mean it in a rude way, she was just curious, and knowing that, he merely shrugged again before replying with, "What can I say? I just really love ramen. When I saw the place first open up I wanted to try it, and the food was so good I got addicted after the first bite."

She giggled again at his answer, saying she couldn't agree more before digging in to her bowl of udon soup before it got cold.

Smiling in a bittersweet way as he watched her eat, a part of him wanted to tell her about how it had also been Mushin's kindness that had kept him coming back year after year, about how he wasn't comfortable in the more hoity-toity establishments because everyone looked down on him for being someone of youkai blood in the human side of town, but not for the first time, he hesitated. It was selfish, he knew, keeping the truth of himself from her like that, and he wasn't trying to trick her, but Sango and Miroku had been a one-off, thanks in part to Mushin talking to them both before they'd met him, he was sure. _Most_ people gave him 'the look' even if they never said anything to his face, even if segregation wasn't technically legal and nobody had the right to refuse service to him. Everyone just stuck to their own kind, the youkai living in their cities, the humans in theirs, with hanyou stuck in the middle.

There was in fact an actual middle. Near the unofficial border between 'sides of town' in his large city you were much more likely to see humans and youkai interacting with one another, and mixed families raising hanyou children together were not entirely unheard of, but Inuyasha lived on the _far_ end of the 'human' side, about as far away from other youkai as he could get, not by choice – or at least, not by _his_ choice – but to stay close to his mother, his mother still living in the luxury apartment his father had put her up in back when she'd first discovered she was pregnant.

Their existence wasn't a secret in the youkai world. Everyone knew of Toga Taisho's former human mistress and illegitimate hanyou son. But out of sight, out of mind, and the wealthy daiyoukai paid Inuyasha more than enough money to stay out of sight. As a child he hadn't understood, and as an adult he had been furious to learn the truth of the matter, but for his mother's sake, to not cause any trouble for her, he had agreed to not step foot in the youkai side of town until after her eventual death, which, kami permitting, would not be for several decades yet. Inuyasha was only in his early thirties, after all, and Izayoi had had him when she was twenty. He would have _centuries_ to confront his father later on, or even to just meet the guy, since they'd only ever spoken over the phone. He could wait.

In the meantime, Inuyasha found himself easily preoccupied with thoughts of Kagome. He'd really come to care for the girl over the last two years, which was a problem because the longer he went without letting her know he wasn't entirely human, the harder he was afraid it might be, for the both of them, if she ever discovered the truth. Especially if she found out some other way than him telling her.

At first, it just hadn't seemed like the sort of thing he'd felt he'd needed to mention, when they had just been casual acquaintances occasionally speaking politely to each other while getting their lunch at the same time, but now, while he knew she deserved to know, as it was obvious to him that she had come to care for him as well, he was terrified of losing what they had. He was terrified of seeing that beautiful face of hers scrunch up in disgust. Of hearing words of hatred spew from her delicate, cherry scented lips.

Long ago, when she'd first asked him his name, he'd replied with _Yasha_ , while shooting Sango and Miroku a pointed look. He hadn't really been _lying_ to her, since Yasha was a nickname he'd already been using for years. Especially whenever he and his mother would go out on his human nights; the only times he'd ever felt normal and accepted. He also had bad memories of school kids teasing him about being part dog, so while Sango and Miroku had learned his full name at one point they'd only ever called him Yasha in front of others. The _look_ he had given Sango and Miroku the day he'd introduced himself to Kagome hadn't been so much about his name, a warning for them to watch what they called him in front of her, but instead, a reminder of what his full name represented, letting the cook and manager know he didn't want the blind girl aware of his youkai heritage.

He lived in fear of some random racist seeing him and going off about the establishment 'allowing' hanyou while she was there, although thankfully such raging human supremacists were few and far between. The worst that usually ever happened was someone would enter, see him, mutter something to themselves about taking their business elsewhere, and leave. And all the other regulars had accepted his presence long ago and were as equally glad as Kagome that he had taken over ownership when the alternative had been losing their favorite noodle shop. It'd been no secret that Mushin was selling, and everyone had been devastated. Inuyasha had tried to keep his involvement as low key as possible, but people talked.

What if, one day, one of those people 'talked' to or _near_ Kagome, about how _glad_ they were that 'the hanyou' had bought the place?

He had to tell her, he knew, and soon.

But not today.

Maybe...maybe if their relationship were go to go the next level, then he'd _really_ have to tell her, and it'd feel more appropriate, instead of just an 'oh by the way' kind of moment where, even if she accepted him, she'd be mad at him over the fact that he'd kept it a secret from her. If he were to ask her out on a date – something he'd been wanting to do for several months now, anyway – then he could tell her, on their first date, and use the excuse that before, when they were just acquaintances, he hadn't felt she'd needed to know, and he could admit to being selfish, of liking the idea of having a casual friend who treated him normally because she thought he _was_ normal, and he'd apologize for that selfishness, while also explaining that he knew she needed to know the truth if they were going to take their relationship to the next level.

Yes, that was a good plan, and not only would it get him off his proverbial butt when it came to finally asking her out, but if all went well then not only would he not lose a casual friend, he'd gain a girlfriend.

"Kagome," he spoke up then, before he had a chance to chicken out, and hearing the hesitant, nervous quality to his voice immediately earned him her full attention.

"Yes…?"

His nervousness was making _her_ nervous.

"I...that is...I was just wondering if maybe you'd like to...get something to eat sometime?"

Behind her dark sunglasses, her sightless eyes blinked in confusion. "Aren't we eating now?"

"Well, _yeah_ , but..."

He paused at her own nervous intake of breath.

"Yasha, are you...are you asking me out on a date?"

He could easily scent her spike in apprehension, but there was no actual fear from her, not that he truly understood her apprehension either because he knew she liked him. Could it possibly be that she already new what he was, and while she didn't mind being _friends_ with a hanyou, dating one was another story? But no, he wouldn't allow his mind to jump to conclusions, and assuming she really did think he was human it wasn't fair to use his advanced sense of smell against her, either. Although, with the way she was now fidgeting with her head bowed, he didn't even need his nose to know how nervous she'd become.

Glad they were truly alone, now, the few other people who'd come in a short while ago all ordering their food to-go while Sango and Miroku were now having their own conversation in the kitchen – although it was unfortunately about how 'cute' they thought he and Kagome were together – Inuyasha swallowed the lump in his throat and asked her, "Is that all right?" His desire to reassure her was at least helping to calm his own rattled nerves.

"Of course!" she blurted, her cheeks darkening as she cleared her throat. "That is...I mean...I just haven't been on a date in several years, so..."

"I've never been on a date," he confessed after she let her words trail off, and he could just make out the faint image of her milky eyes bugging in surprise through the tinted glass.

"Really?" she asked. "I find that hard to believe. I'm sure you're quite the catch."

He ignored the self-deprecating part of his psyche that wanted to make a cruel joke about dog catchers.

"Not really," he answered instead, which was definitely true although he didn't tell her _why_. "I'm sure I could land someone if I flaunted my money, but then they'd only be interested in me for my money, and _that_ doesn't interest _me_ ," he added honestly.

"Yet you're not worried about that with me?" Kagome inquired. "You've told me you're rich, after all."

"Yeah, but I can tell you're not that kind of person," he answered then, just as honestly.

He also couldn't help but notice that she didn't press him about 'not really' being a catch. For all she knew, he could be hideously ugly – and some people would say he _was –_ yet it was clear she didn't care.

Biting her lower lip, he could tell her hands were still fidgeting in their place sitting in her lap, though the table blocked his view of seeing exactly what they were doing. Finally, she started to ask, "And it...it doesn't bother you that I'm..."

"Blind?" he supplied when she hesitated again.

Raising her head and appearing to stare right at him, although he knew better, Inuyasha's nose told him that her nervousness had not increased, but instead, she actually smelled as if she was getting braver, probably from the casual way in which he'd finished her sentence for her, letting her know that he didn't care about her blindness any more than she cared about his appearance. Then she did something he wasn't expecting. She removed her sunglasses.

Most of her face was blemish-free, but the skin of her eye sockets and upper cheeks had mild scarring. It instantly became clear to him that her blindness had been caused by something getting into her eyes, like acid, which had also burned the surrounding skin. She'd never shared the details with him and he hadn't asked; for her to show him this now...she was really taking a chance, putting her faith in him.

"Doesn't bother me in the slightest," he said in that moment, as she put her shades back on, and he meant it with every fiber of his being. Now he _really_ needed to tell her the truth about himself, if she was willing to trust him with something like that.

"I've gotten to know you a bit over these last two years, and I've realized that...that I'd like to know more, get to know you even better. And...and I want to tell you some things you don't know about me yet, either. Things you deserve to know if...if we were going to try giving _us_ a try."

Kami, he'd never strung together so many words in one sitting before, but she was worth it.

"In that case..." She swallowed. "I'd love to."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Grabbing hold of the next plate her mother handed her, Kagome expertly dried it before adding it to the 'done' pile, sighing as she did so.

"You're not still second guessing yourself, are you dear?" her mother asked at the sound, Mrs. Higurashi washing the last of that night's four dinner plates.

Handing Kagome the plate to dry, the elder Higurashi woman moved on to washing the first drinking glass, slowing her movements when she noticed how much more slowly Kagome was suddenly moving as the twenty-five-year-old appeared to become lost in thought.

"I just..." Kagome started to say before sighing again. Finally finishing with the last plate, she added it to the stack then turned to face her mother, even though she could no longer see her. "How can he possibly want to go out with _me_?" she stressed.

Mrs. Higurashi stopped washing the glass, frowning slightly.

"Why wouldn't he?" she asked, in a tone of voice that had Kagome crinkling her nose.

"Don't look at me like that," Kagome replied, easily able to visualize her mother's 'disappointed' face. "I'm not getting down on myself, I'm just being realistic."

"Well, maybe he's horribly disfigured and nobody who can see him gives him the time of day," Mrs. Higurashi said then, in a seemingly nonchalant tone of voice, which earned a horrified expression from her daughter.

"Mom!" Kagome said, aghast. "I can't believe you said that!"

"Just being realistic," her mother replied sarcastically. "What?" she asked then, feigning confusion. "Would it _bother_ you if he were ugly or scarred or something?"

"Of course not!" Kagome insisted without hesitation.

"Then why is it so hard to accept that _your_ scars and blindness don't bother _him_?" her mother asked then.

 _Crap, she's got a good point, like always..._ the former miko-in-training realized with a defeated chuckle.

"He said, 'cause we've already gotten to know each other a little bit, that he wanted to get to know me even better."

"And do you believe him?" Kagome's mother asked her then, in a genuinely inquisitive tone. She wasn't reprimanding her daughter in any way. She simply wanted to know if Kagome believed this Yasha fellow.

"I..."

Thinking about it a moment, Kagome knew that while she could no longer 'see' into a person's soul like she'd used to be able to do, despite her sensei Kaede insisting that her blindness should have actually enhanced her spiritual powers, not muted them, she nevertheless had become an excellent judge of reading someone's mood by the sound of their voice over the last three years. Yasha had sounded completely sincere in his desire to take her out on a date to see if there was the possibility of a closer relationship there for the two of them. So the real question wasn't whether or not she believed him, because she did. The question was whether or not _she_ was ready to take that next step.

But how would she know without at least trying, right? She could always tell him afterwards that she thought they should just stay friends if she felt too uncomfortable at the prospect of getting closer to him, but the truth was, she _did_ want to at least _try_. She was lonely, despite having a loving family that was there for her in every way. She wanted the kind of affection Yasha seemed to be willing to offer, the kind of affection his life was clearly also lacking.

He had _never_ been on a date? Ever? He wasn't a catch, according to him, and yet he didn't want to settle for someone who would only be interested in him for his money. That, alone, told Kagome that, as far as she was concerned, he actually _was_ quite the catch.

Looks didn't matter much to her. Even before she'd lost her sight, it had always been what was on the inside t hat mattered to her, and even without her ability to see within the souls of others she knew that Yasha was a kind man who both _wanted_ and knew he _deserved_ genuine companionship from someone who wanted him for _him_ and not his bank account. That was all she needed to know about him to at least be willing to go out on that first date. If she hadn't felt that way, she wouldn't have told him yes.

She finally told her mother yes in that moment, as well, in answer to the question of whether or not she believed Yasha.

"Well then, all I have to say is, have a wonderful time, dear," Mrs. Higurashi replied, smiling broadly.

"Oh no, you're not getting let off the hook _that_ easily," Kagome teased, as she and her mother got back to washing and drying the glasses from dinner. "You're gonna need to help me with my hair and makeup!"

Laughing, Mrs. Higurashi pulled her daughter into a sideways hug and kissed the top of her head, while Kagome laughed as well.

"I'm looking forward to it," her mother said.

o o o

The next day, Kagome was so preoccupied with thoughts of her upcoming date and going over a mental picture of her wardrobe to try and pick out what she should wear, that she very nearly walked right past her bus stop. She typically always counted her steps and also made sure to walk on the side of the sidewalk where the bench was located so that even if she didn't feel it with her cane first she'd then walk right into it, rather than past it, but somehow, today, she had done neither. If it hadn't been for Kikyou, a fellow regular morning bus rider, speaking up as she walked on by, Kagome would've been late for work.

"Kagome?" was all the slightly older woman needed to say as she walked by in order to get her attention.

"Oh crap," Kagome replied with a nervous chuckle as she immediately turned around at the sound of the other girl's voice. "I nearly walked right past the bus stop, didn't I?"

"You did," Kikyou confirmed. "Is everything all right?"

"Oh fine," Kagome waved off with her left hand, her right hand holding on to her cane. "My mind was just somewhere else," she admitted. "Thanks for getting my attention." And she meant it.

"Daydreaming is a dangerous pastime for someone in your condition," Kikyou lightly admonished, and Kagome somehow just barely managed to resist the urge to scrunch up her face at the miko's reprimanding tone.

Oh, she couldn't sense the older woman's spiritual powers, what with her own powers on lockdown at the moment, but Kikyou had volunteered the information at one point or another, and had sounded rather pleased with herself while doing so, too, if memory served. Kagome had never bothered to share the fact that she was, or at least had been, a reiki user as well, and she'd also resisted the urge to lecture her elder on the merits of humility, not having felt confident enough at the time to be her old, argumentative self. In that moment, she also tried not to let her temper rise at Kikyou's comment about her 'condition' because, at the end of the day, she _had_ very nearly missed her bus because she'd been spacing out.

Hearing said vehicle approach only a few short minutes later, Kagome also realized she must have been walking a little slower than usual, unless the bus was early, which was unlikely. She was definitely glad the older miko had gotten her attention, otherwise her first clue that she'd walked too far down the sidewalk would've probably been when she heard the bus sail right past her. It wouldn't have been _that_ big of a deal – Kagome knew her home neighborhood far too well to truly get lost – but having to double back and wait for the next bus would've definitely made her late for work, which was something she wanted to avoid if at all possible.

"Try to be more careful in the future," Kikyou continued then, as Kagome heard the bus come to a stop, Kikyou's tone still admonishing yet bizarrely caring as well, as though she were lecturing a child whose feelings she did not want to hurt.

It had Kagome rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. She'd been taking the bus by herself in her 'condition' for around two years now, after all. She definitely could have done without the added commentary, but she _had_ fucked up, and having a twenty-minute bus ride with this woman, Kagome kept her fake smile plastered firmly in place as they both boarded the bus and she scanned her IC card on the reader to deduct her fare.

"Yes, thank you," she said before taking her seat near the front of the bus, mentally groaning when she could tell Kikyou took the seat across from her on the other side of the aisle. Usually, Kikyou sat more towards the back of the bus.

Ignoring her presence for a moment, she addressed the driver.

"Can you please let me know when we reach Shikon Plaza?" she asked.

Sometimes it was a different driver, and the two usual drivers who both knew her and her stop by that point always greeted her as she climbed on board, so the lack of greeting from this driver had let Kagome know that it was not one of the two regulars.

"Sure thing," an unfamiliar but friendly voice answered, the driver having immediately clued in to her blindness thanks to her red and white cane, and after telling the man "Thank you very much" Kagome leaned back against her seat a little bit.

She refused to let her mind wander again, but she couldn't really keep track of the bus stops along her route since the bus only ever actually stopped at ones where people needed to get on or off, and while she and Kikyou were not the only regulars the occasional fluctuation from just one added or missing person was enough to throw off her count. She'd learned the hard way it was better to just rely on the driver.

"So what had you so preoccupied?" Kikyou asked suddenly, as if they were friends.

Mentally scolding herself for her initial reaction, Kagome figured the woman was just trying to be nice, and there was certainly nothing wrong with that, despite something about Kikyou just rubbing her the wrong way.

"It's silly," she began. "I have a date on Saturday and I was just thinking about what to wear."

"Really?" Kikyou sounded genuinely surprised, which was rare for the woman who's voice usually betrayed no emotions. "I would not have guessed that, but congratulations, I suppose."

 _Just what the hell is_ _ **that**_ _supposed to mean?_ Kagome nearly had to physically bite her tongue to keep from blurting out the first thought to pop into her mind.

Was it really _that_ shocking, that someone 'like her' could _possibly_ have a date on Saturday night?

Suddenly, her own previous insecurities regarding the seriousness of Yasha's interest in her went out the proverbial window?

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked then, but not in a loud, pissed off tone of voice. Her voice was quiet, while her tone suggested she already knew exactly what Kikyou had meant.

Unfazed, and unapologetic, the older miko replied in the same neutral, matter-of-fact tone she normally tended to use with most things she said.

"There's no need to get defensive," she brushed off. "I simply hadn't thought about you as someone who dates. But I am happy for you, if that's what you want, and hope you have a good time on Saturday."

She didn't sound happy. In fact, she sounded neither happy nor envious, or even patronizing, which might've been expected based on what she actually said, and for Kagome it solidified the thing that bugged her the most about Kikyou.

She couldn't read her.

Outside of obvious pride whenever boasting about her own accomplishments, Kikyou seemed to have no other emotions – save, apparently, the ability to be surprised – and dealing with her made Kagome feel blind all over again.

That fact didn't stop her from making _her_ emotions known, however.

"For your _information_ ," Kagome began, still keeping her voice down, "just because I'm blind now doesn't mean my life is over." Fabricating a slight exaggeration, because her insecurities were none of Kikyou's business, she added, "My plans of falling in love, getting married and raising a family haven't changed in the slightest."

Kikyou actually snorted, which was at least an emotional response. Then she said, "Like I said, I'm happy for you. I never meant to imply I was surprised because of your blindness. I'm certain with only minor assistance you could be a wonderful mother, and at least it would give your life meaning." Pausing to take a breath but speaking up again before Kagome had a chance to interrupt, Kikyou then added, "I, myself, simply have a much higher calling, and as such I've no time for such trivial nonsense."

Kagome realized, then. It wasn't that Kikyou thought she was being silly for wanting a family because she was blind, as if Kikyou thought such things were beyond her reach. Kikyou simply thought wanting a family was silly in and of itself. Now, if Kikyou didn't want a husband and children, that was perfectly all right with Kagome, because to each their own, and she would never criticize a woman's choice to put her career first, or talk down to someone who had no desire to be a mother as if there was something wrong with that decision, but for Kikyou to do the opposite, well...it just showed Kagome all she really needed to know about what type of a person Kikyou was.

"Shikon Plaza's coming up next stop, miss," the bus driver interjected politely, and Kagome decided to hold her tongue rather than continue arguing with Kikyou. People like that...you couldn't change their minds, anyway.

"Thank you," she replied to the driver instead, beaming her most sincere smile his way, which she hoped he caught in his rearview mirror.

It was no act. Kikyou had annoyed her, true, but she was only annoyed with Kikyou. Long before she'd lost her sight Kagome had always made sure to never let a potentially bad mood of hers rub off on the people around her who weren't responsible for her sour mood and thus did not deserve her ire. She might've exaggerated her smile a wee bit in that moment, but only to show Kikyou that her words had not brought her down. To everyone else she would be her usual chipper self.

As the bus pulled to a stop and Kagome stood up to exit, she decided to say one last thing to the woman who was probably so lonely she had had to build up that cold wall around her heart for protection. Kagome wished she could look into Kikyou's soul to know for certain, but it was a good guess, at any rate. She also decided to take a page from Kikyou's book and speak with an air of confidence while showing no emotion.

"If you truly are content with your life the way it is, then I am happy for you, as well."

That said, she exited the bus and, extending her cane, headed towards work, her head ringing with the things she would have _liked_ to say to Kikyou, though it had been the fact that she would be right there on tomorrow's bus that had stilled her tongue. Trying her best to put it out of her mind, she made sure not to distract herself so much that she lost count of her steps again.

Finding the large rock in the landscaping along the sidewalk that Hojo had placed there as her special marker, Kagome knew she was in the right place as she took that path down towards one of the many small shops that lined the street. One of them, a little farther up the road, was Mushin's Noodles, and Kagome's heart fluttered in her chest just thinking about it, but her lunch break wasn't for four hours yet and so getting her head in the game, she opened the front door to _Hojo's Holistic Healing_ and stepped inside, the gentle rattle of bamboo chimes on the door announcing her presence as the pleasing scents of old wood and medicinal herbs tickled her nose.

"Higurashi, good morning!" Hojo greeted as he came into the front room at the sound of the door.

"Good morning, Hojo-kun," she greeted in reply.

Slipping off her shoes in the small genkan, she placed them in their designated cubby, and after donning her pair of work slippers, she followed her friend and boss deeper into the old style natural herbs and remedies shop that had been in Hojo's family for generations.

He had hired her as a favor after her...accident. Originally, she had wanted to study to become a nurse in addition to being a miko, but after losing both her sight and her powers she had become pretty much useless for either field, in her opinion, except that she hadn't lost her desire to help people. She'd thought about still studying some aspects of nursing, perhaps ultimately getting a job as one of those emergency question answerers that people could call on the phone, but in the meantime she'd just needed to _do_ something so she wouldn't feel totally useless, and her little job at Hojo's Holistic Healing was perfect.

It was a family run business, one of the few remaining shops where you could get all natural, ancient remedies, and since they specialized in spiritual well-being being directly connected to physical health they also sold charms and talismans made by local reiki-weilding craftsmen. Unlike Mushin's Noodles, no new competition ever moved in to town as the city grew and modernized, so for the century-old shop business was booming.

While Kagome was off on Sundays and Mondays, the store was actually open seven days a week. Traditionally, only Hojo men and their wives worked in the shop, along with the occasional unmarried daughter, but her former boyfriend, Shin Hojo, had spoken to his father and gotten the older man to agree to give Kagome a job as a general assistant. Fortunately, for her, they had had the opening. Shin Hojo had been running the shop with his father and sister, but his sister, who had still been working there part-time to help out despite being married and pregnant, had just recently needed to go on maternity leave. She also wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, which her father most definitely supported because he believed in tradition, but that had still left the senior Hojo and his lone son running the shop all by themselves, until Kagome came along.

Her duties were anything she felt she could handle to help out, such as answering the phone, and sorting new deliveries of herbs since that was easily accomplished by smell. It helped that having had miko training for a few years, she was already familiar with most of the herbs they carried. They weren't the sort of herbs you cooked with just to give your food some added flavor.

Inhaling deeply once she entered the back room, it smelled like their Wednesday delivery of herbs had already arrived and was waiting to be sorted. The back room usually did not smell of herbs like the front room did, except when their weekly shipment was sitting open, waiting for her to get to it.

"They just came in a short while ago," Hojo said in reply to her obvious scenting of the room. "Everything's already set up on the table for you."

"Thank you."

With Hojo going back out into the front room to take inventory while keeping an eye out for customers, Kagome got herself settled at what had become her station for sorting herbs. Having a seat on the cushion provided at the large, low table, the new shipment was on the floor to her left, as it always was, still in the box but with the tape already cut and the box open. In front of her, running lengthwise along the table from left to right, was a series of (currently empty) baskets, that she would be separating the various herbs into. Each baggie was labeled, but unable to read the labels she simply opened the resealable baggies one by one and identified the herbs by smell. She already knew which various herbs they carried, by name, and the baskets were arranged in alphabetical order. It had taken a little getting used to, at first, but working there for two years now Kagome was a pro. She knew each herb by heart and knew where each basket was located on the table without having to feel around and count the baskets off one by one to avoid accidentally putting something in the wrong one.

Getting going in that moment, it only took her a minute to get into the grove, and then she was like an herb sorting machine, and there she sat until she went through the entire box, pausing only a few times to answer the cordless phone that was also sitting to her left, next to the shipping box. Most of the time it was a question she could handle, and that also freed Hojo up to do other things, but if he needed to take the call she knew which button on the phone was the 'hold' button and then she'd call out for him to pick up the line.

Once she was done sorting all the herbs, she got up and took the baskets into the other room one by one, handing them to Hojo who then refilled the various wooden boxes lining his shelves that carried the little baggies of herbs. With that task done, Kagome and Hojo visited for a while in the main room while the shop had no customers, but she had the cordless phone on her and answered it any time it rang. Her cellphone, which was in her pocket, notified her when it was time for her lunch break.

She didn't have a smartphone, because although the newer ones could probably do all sorts of things for her with simple voice commands, she liked the feel of the physical buttons on her older flip phone. It was still much more advanced than _just_ a phone and had an alarm app her mother had programmed for her with multiple alarms all set to go off every workday, starting with the alarm to get her up in the morning and ending with the alarm at the end of her work shift, since she could easily get enthralled with her work otherwise and didn't want to accidentally stay late and miss her bus. Turning the lunch break alarm off with little difficulty now that she knew which button to press that left the alarm itself still active to go off again the next day, she said her temporary goodbyes to Hojo while handing him back the shop's cordless phone and then headed down the street to Mushin's Noodles.

It was more of the same usual pleasantries at the small noodle shop. At first she didn't think Yasha was there, but then he emerged from the back office.

"Almost lost track of time," he said as he greeted her at the food counter. "I'm still getting the hang of all the freakin' paperwork involved with running this place."

"I don't envy you _that_ job," Kagome said as she reached up to grab her bowl of udon soup from Sango.

"I got it," Inuyasha said instead as he grabbed Kagome's food and walked with her to the back booth. Once she got settled he placed the bowl in front of her and held out the spoon for her to grab.

"I can get my own food," she scolded lightly, "but thank you." Laughing, she joked as she accepted the spoon, "If you're trying to practice pampering me in preparation for our date on Saturday, you're doing a good job so far."

Laughing as well, he said, "I would've pulled the chair out for you, too, if you'd sat at one of the tables."

"Tell you what, I'll let you get the door for me when I leave."

"Deal."

Falling into silence, then, Inuyasha watched as Kagome began slurping at her soup. She had to realize he was staring at her, but his attention didn't seem to bother her; he'd be able to smell her discomfort if that's how she'd been feeling. Then Sango, ever vigilant as she was, came over with a bowl of beef ramen for him, and flashing her a grateful nod he began slurping as well, feeling much less awkward about sitting with Kagome now that they were _both_ eating lunch.

About halfway through her meal Kagome started chatting with him, and he was happy to engage in small talk with her. She asked about where they were going on their date, only because she wanted to know what to wear. Laughing, she even told him about how she'd gotten sidetracked during her morning walk to the bus, daydreaming about their upcoming date like she was a high school girl again, and that if it hadn't been for a fellow regular commuter she might've missed the bus and been late to work.

"Maybe I _should_ get a newer phone," she commented. "Even as a second device, it might be a good idea. Something that my mom could program the map on. She could put in the bus stop's location every morning before I leave so that it could actually tell me when I reach it every day,"

"That's a good idea," he agreed, hating the idea of her accidentally missing her stop for real and missing her bus.

"I wouldn't want to bother Hojo-kun or Hojo-sama with resetting it for me when I leave work in the afternoons," she continued, "but I've never actually missed my bus yet and if I _did_ miss it going home it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal."

"I could meet you at the store when you get off and walk you to the bus stop," he offered before thinking better of it. Did he really want to risk either Hojo asking her about 'the hanyou' from the noodle shop walking her to the bus?

Fortunately he didn't have to worry about it, because Kagome insisted that, while very sweet of him to offer, it was unnecessary. Quickly changing the subject, then, he went ahead and told her he was planning on taking her to Rêve D'or, a traditional French restaurant.

"Oh wow, I wasn't expecting a place _quite_ that fancy," she said. "I don't know if I'd fit in."

 _And I do?_ he thought. "Nonsense," he said instead. "You're going to be my date, that alone means you'll fit in. I want to treat you, please. Don't give 'fitting in' a second thought, and order whatever you want."

"Now I'm really wondering what to wear, though." Lowering her head a little, she unconsciously bit her lower lip in worry.

"Well, they _do_ have a dress code," he conceded, "but it's not as strict for women. Probably any kind of dress would be just fine, so long as it's not ridiculously indecent."

"I'll save that one for our third date," she joked, and he was relieved for her sense of humor, chuckling along with her when she laughed while shaking her head. "I think I have a dress in mind," she added then. "If you think blue would be a good look, then I've got a really nice blue dress that's got a knee-length skirt and long sleeves."

"That sounds perfect," he told her, "and since you told me what color you're wearing, I'll make sure to wear a blue suit to match."

"That sounds...nice," she said, grinning a little. "I'm really looking forward to it."

"You better be," he teased. "I'm looking forward to it, too. It's a wonderful restaurant; I really want to treat you."

"Well if you _wanted_ to treat me, you could, you know, stop charging me for my udon," she teased then, not really serious, but he blushed nonetheless.

"I, uh..." He cleared his throat loud enough for her to hear, and she started giggling.

"Relax Yasha, I was just kidding!" she insisted.

"But you're right, though. I own the damn place, and if I'm hoping that maybe...I mean...the _idea_ is that you will hopefully become my girlfriend, so yeah...it's on the house, from now on."

It was Kagome's turn to blush at his words. She knew that that _was_ the idea of them going out on a date, that they were both hoping there might be something there that would click between them, and then one date would lead to two or three, and yes, ultimately wasn't the goal for them to be together romantically? Wasn't the whole point of _dating_ someone to test them out as a trial run for a romantic relationship? But even so, to hear him just blatantly say that he hoped she'd become his girlfriend...that touched a part of her heart she hadn't realized she'd been using until now. She knew she liked him – she wouldn't have agreed to go on a date with him in the first place if she didn't – but now she realized that she _really_ liked him, and really liked the idea of becoming his girlfriend.

"I'd like that," she said, deliberately vague. Let him wonder if she was just referring to the free udon.

But he knew her tone of voice by now, and could also read her scent even though she didn't know that detail yet, and he knew exactly what she'd meant with that comment.

"I'm looking forward to it."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Looking over his reflection one last time, his deep blue suit with white dress shirt pressed to perfection, his midnight tresses tied back in a low ponytail, Inuyasha sighed, and was grateful not for the first time that with the sun setting so much earlier in mid-November he was able to take Kagome out at 6pm in his human form. He was also glad the new moon happened to fall on a Saturday that month; it made picking that particular night for their first date so much easier.

It wasn't cowardice, it was self-preservation. He had every intention of telling Kagome what he was, tonight, but what if he were in his hanyou form and some random person said something to them or even just muttered to themselves loud enough for her to hear? He'd much rather not take that chance. It was no small miracle his secret hadn't already been outed at some point. So since right after he'd finally braved asking Kagome out he'd realized that that upcoming Saturday was the new moon, it had been too perfect to an opportunity pass up.

He wished he could take credit for having planned it all that way from the beginning, but honestly, when he'd first decided to ask her out he had made the decision right then and there. He'd only been thinking about forcing himself to finally _have_ to tell her what he was, and using the cover of the new moon to ensure the big night wasn't spoiled at the last moment somehow or another hadn't originally been a part of the equation; he just hadn't thought that far ahead. It hadn't been until after she'd said yes, and he'd suddenly realized he needed to pick a date for the date, as it were, that he'd also realized when the rapidly approaching new moon was.

Miroku liked to say that all things happened for a reason, so deciding to believe for the moment that everything really had worked out so perfectly because it was destiny at work, Inuyasha headed down the hall in socked feet into the living room and then into the genkan, where he begrudgingly put on his shiny black lace-up dress shoes. Grabbing his keys, wallet and phone, then, he tapped a button on his phone that dimmed all the lights in his apartment and then headed out the door towards the elevator he never used in his hanyou form.

Fortunately, in another stroke of luck, he managed to ride the elevator all the way down into the underground residential parking garage from his top floor apartment without it stopping anywhere along the way for anyone else to get on. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd been in that awkward situation, most of the other residents not even realizing it was him in human form; he was grateful to have avoided it this time around.

Draping his jacket over the driver's seat before getting into his car, an overpriced bright red two-seater that Sango had said she would believe any other man had purchased to 'compensate' for something – in actuality he had, but he'd been compensating for his lack of humanity – Inuyasha maneuvered himself out of the underground parking garage and, turning on to the main road, headed towards Kagome's house.

AKA, the Higurashi Shrine.

Once he'd learned _that_ little tidbit he'd internally sighed in relief that they'd already set the day and time for him to pick her up. Yet one more piece of evidence to support the theory that destiny was doing him a solid. Even though he could theoretically get a black wig, brown contacts, file his claws down, and avoid smiling to conceal his fangs, if Kagome came from a shrine family then at least one person in her immediate family had to be a reiki user, and considering the strength of his youki even a relatively weak reiki user would be strong enough to sense what he was through such a disguise.

He wasn't relieved that Kagome herself seemed to have been born without the gift, though. If she'd been a reiki user herself then she would've sensed what he was on day one, back on that first day when she'd come in on her lunch break with Hojo. Well, they hadn't actually interacted on those first couple of days, so she would've only known that there was a youkai in the small restaurant, but the cat – or dog, rather – would have definitely been out of the bag her first time there alone, the day he'd opened the door for her.

Well, she would find out tonight, he swore to himself, as he turned down the street that headed up into the foothills where her family shrine was located.

They actually didn't live that far away from each other, he'd discovered. He'd never had reason to come down this way before, but the shrine was only about a fifteen minute drive from his apartment. As the towering shrine gates came into view at the end of the street, however, the reason why he'd never been down this way before suddenly became abundantly clear. The shrine seemed so imposing, the hum of holy energy so strong that he could even feel it in his human form. As a hanyou he would've instinctively avoided going towards this place, even if he didn't realize he was avoiding anything. He probably wouldn't even be able to set foot on the property in his hanyou form. Not without purifying himself, at least.

 _One worry at a time,_ he told himself then.

First, the girl had to decide she wanted to keep seeing him after learning what he was, and if he could pass _that_ hurdle, then dealing with the local kami of her shrine, not to mention the rest of her family, would be worth it.

Parking his car along the curb near the base of the stairs, he took a deep breath and got out, and then after putting his jacket back on for appearance's sake, since he knew he would probably be meeting Kagome's family, he then began a climb he could normally clear in a single leap.

 _Assuming a barrier didn't knock me on my ass_...

It was weird, feeling the holiness of the land beneath his feet without feeling any sort of rejection accompanied by that sensation. It actually almost felt as if the land was welcoming him, and he momentarily wished he were barefoot, to better connect with the earth, despite the stairs actually being concrete.

He absolutely hated wearing shoes, and normally only wore straw zori sandals, without tabi socks, but he was no slob and had known he needed to dress nice for dinner tonight. The restaurant they were going to had a very strict dress code, after all. While a necktie was thankfully not required – he didn't like having anything tied around his neck if he could avoid it – a suit jacket was. Kagome deserved only the best. It didn't matter that she herself wouldn't be able to see his outfit; he wasn't trying to _impress_ her but _protect_ her, most importantly her image, because everyone _else_ would see her dining with a well dressed human man.

And at least his human-self didn't instinctively protest his feet being bound within laced up black dress shoes and socks the way his hanyou-self would have. It was still annoying, but easy enough to deal with without actively having to fight himself about it every literal step of the way. Especially with his dominant desire already being to protect Kagome. He couldn't help it. It was an instinctual thing. He was inu, and his inner youkai had decided a few months ago that she was his human. At that point, his desire to both please and protect her was strong enough to have him willing to endure whatever it took to achieve both those goals, even in his hanyou form.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Inuyasha glanced around the impressive shrine grounds for a moment, hanging lanterns scattered about providing more than enough light for any wayward visitor to see by. At first he felt lost, lacking his usual sense of smell which meant he couldn't just track Kagome's scent to the home he didn't immediately see, but then remembering that Kagome had said their house was towards the back left of the property, behind the main shrine building, he glanced around until spotting the small path to follow that led him around the various shrine enclosures and towards the residence of the shrine keepers. According to Kagome, her family had not only been the keepers of this shrine for the last five centuries, but the founders of it, as well, hence the shrine being named after them, or even more likely, they being named after it.

Spotting the house, he fidgeted with his suit a moment, brushing away some imaginary lint before smoothing out some nonexistent wrinkles, but he maintained his approach all the while, never pausing in his nervousness. At 6:02pm he came to a stop in front of the door.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Inuyasha raised his hand to knock, and pausing only briefly to stare with a blank face at his clawless fingers in the low light of their front porch sconce, he made a fist and knocked.

He couldn't hear anything going on inside the house thanks to his weakened human hearing, but soon enough the front door opened, and a middle-aged woman with a radiant smile that easily reached her eyes was standing there to greet him.

"You must be Yasha," she said right away, her tone of voice welcoming.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Higurashi-san," he replied with a formal bow.

"It's Atsuko, please, I insist," she replied after bowing a little herself, her smile not wavering in the slightest.

"As you insist, Atsuko-san," he answered with a shy smile of his own.

Mrs. Higurashi nodded her head in satisfaction, then stepping aside to bid him entry, she said, "Kagome's told me a lot about you, while also lamenting the fact that she doesn't actually know that much about you." She finished with a motherly chuckle as she added, "Please, come in."

"That's about to change," Inuyasha replied as he passed through the doorway, in regard to Kagome not knowing much about him. "It is my hope that we will both get to know much more about each other, both tonight, and going forward into the future."

He figured he might as well make his position known with her mother up front, let the older Higurashi woman know that he was quite serious in his pursuit of her daughter. This wasn't just some passing fancy.

Opting to wait in the genkan so that he didn't have to fiddle with removing his shoes when he'd then need to put them back on again in only a moment, since Atsuko had told him that Kagome would be right down, he stood there, feeling both nervous as hell about tonight and paranoid that Kagome's mother was going to somehow sense what he was, when suddenly, a young man who looked around nineteen or twenty years old emerged from the living room.

 _Stupid human senses…_ he mentally grumbled. If he'd been his hanyou self he would've known that guy was in the other room.

"Yasha," the man greeted with a nod of his head, his eyes looking like he was sizing him up.

 _Must be Souta,_ Inuyasha realized quickly, Kagome having told him that her younger brother also still lived at home, and would actually be remaining indefinitely to take over care of the shrine as its priest since their grandfather was getting on in years and wouldn't be around forever.

The way he'd said his name, without a suffix, could have been considered _very_ rude, especially since it was his given name and not his family name, but since he knew Kagome's family didn't yet _know_ his family name, and he didn't personally care for suffixes and he and Kagome never used any with each other, Inuyasha was actually glad for the familiarity.

That didn't mean he'd fall for the trick and fail the test, though. He was in _their_ home, and it was a shrine.

"Higurashi-san," he replied respectfully, bowing to the younger man, and Souta grinned before dropping the facade.

"Souta, please, and you can drop the _san_ bit too," he insisted then. "Kagome's been looking forward to tonight. Been bending my ear about it all week," he teased. "Since Jii-chan's not home, I guess I'm supposed to give you the fifth degree in his place, and ask things like...So what are your plans with my sister for after dinner tonight?"

Blushing at the unexpected question, Inuyasha knew he was being teased but he still couldn't help feeling defensive. This was her little brother, not her father, but the single eyebrow her mother raised as she also looked at him at Souta's question had the hanyou-turned-human knowing he had _better_ answer the 'playful' question correctly.

"I-I'm going to bring her right back home after dinner," he answered, mentally kicking himself for stuttering like the nervous fool that he was.

All his nervousness was promptly forgotten, though, when suddenly, Kagome appeared from the other room, and time momentarily stopped.

She was absolutely stunning.

Her passing description of her dress the other day didn't do it justice. Her dress was a rich, royal blue, and it _was_ knee length with long sleeves, but for some reason he'd been visualizing a straight skirt. The skirt of her dress was pleated and A-framed, like the separate skirts she usually wore to work with button-up blouses, and it made the dress look much more playful rather than being too serious, which he greatly preferred. It also had a heart shaped bodice that showcased her rather large breasts, but without an obscene amount of cleavage. A dainty drop pearl necklace on a silver chain hung with the charm resting right at the top of her cleavage, inviting his eyes to linger there a second longer than they otherwise would have, but then before her mother or brother noticed, he quickly took in the rest of her.

She wasn't wearing stockings, her bare legs from the knees down smooth and creamy. She was also currently barefoot, and glancing down where he was standing in the entryway, he was sure the black dress flats sitting on the floor next to the family's shoe cubby that was filled with everyday shoes had been selected to match the wide black belt around her waist that expertly broke up the blue of her dress while showcasing her curves. Her hair was full of extra body this evening, rich and full and dancing in loose, cascading waves around her shoulders. Earrings that matched her necklace dangled from each dainty earlobe, and her face, or what he could see of it, had been perfectly painted with makeup, not that she needed any.

Or those sunglasses, as far as he was concerned, although she _was_ wearing ones that were much smaller than usual, wire frames with dark round lenses that barely hid her eyes and let some of the surrounding scar tissue be visible, although with concealer blending her skin tone the scars were somewhat less visible than usual. It was a good compromise, he supposed, and he knew he definitely had _no_ right to criticize her for being self-conscious about an aspect of her physical appearance.

The moment was shattered, the passage of time returning to normal, when Kagome broke the sudden silence by addressing her younger brother.

"Souta, you better not have been giving him a hard time," she said, her tone and the smile on her lips both indicating she was just teasing.

Realizing that she had undoubtedly heard what her brother had _asked_ him had him blushing even more, but her reaction suggested she was used to Souta's sense of humor. She was a grown woman, after all, and if they _wanted_ to stay out after dinner, it would be nobody else's business...except for the fact that she still lived at home and that whole 'so long as you live under my roof' parental policy probably applied, he realized.

Besides, he wanted to do right by Kagome, and so even if he hypothetically hadn't had any major, potentially disastrous confessions to make tonight, he still wouldn't have had any plans beyond returning her home after dinner. He probably wasn't even going to try to kiss her, unless she blatantly gave him a signal that it was okay, like leaning in for a kiss, herself, _after_ he told her what he was. If that was hypothetically her way of assuring him she still wanted to see him then he most certainly wouldn't stop her. But he was getting way ahead of himself, he knew, and in that moment he couldn't afford to let his mind wander for too long.

Fortunately, at her initial comment to her brother, Souta had chimed in with some kind of self-defense, joking around in a 'who me?' kind of fashion. It allowed his own extended silence to go unnoticed, he hoped, and at any rate it was a silence he broke when he suddenly blurted out, "You look beautiful."

Kagome immediately blushed at his words, turning his way while fiddling with a lock of her hair, which made him smile.

"Thank you," she answered shyly. "I'm sure you look quite handsome as well."

"Oh he does," her mother chimed in then. "He's quite dapper in a dark blue suit that matches your dress perfectly, a white dress shirt on underneath the jacket, black dress shoes with matching belt, and his long black hair is tied back in a low ponytail," Mrs. Higurashi described for her daughter. "He's got a real cute face, too. One I would pinch the cheeks of if they weren't already turning red," she added with a merry laugh at Inuyasha's expense, his rising blush burning something fierce.

But at the sound of Kagome's gentle laughter it was instantly worth it, and the wink her mother sent his way had him grinning and nodding at the elder Higurashi woman despite his lingering blush.

 _It's definitely worth putting up with her teasing if it makes Kagome happy_...

Mrs. Higurashi guided her daughter towards the genkan, then, even though Kagome knew the way. The younger Higurashi woman leaned on her mother for support, both physical and otherwise, as she slipped on her black dress shoes, before then also grabbing the small black clutch purse that Inuyasha hadn't noticed was sitting on top of the getabako.

Beside where her purse had been sitting was her white and red folding cane, which she picked up next and was just about to unfold when his familiar and yet somehow softer voice quietly spoke back up with a hesitant, "Here."

Feeling his hand take her own, Kagome felt her cheeks heat up again against her will, but smiling despite her renewed blush, she squeezed his hand to let him know without words that she approved of the intimate gesture.

"Shall we go?" he asked her softly.

She nodded.

"Let's."

Inuyasha was just about to open the front door when an instantly recognizable _click_ sound caught their attention. Inuyasha also noticed an accompanying flash of light, and even his human hearing picked up Souta's poorly suppressed laughter.

"Mama..." Kagome stressed, earning Inuyasha's attention next, and he turned his head just in time to see Kagome's mother wearing a 'Who me?' kind of faux innocent expression, her hands held suspiciously behind her back.

"Your mother just took our picture, didn't she?" he asked his date.

"Afraid so," Kagome admitted with another laugh, and grinning triumphantly, Mrs. Higurashi revealed her small camera.

"Can I help it if I want to capture this moment in time?" she asked, sounding as innocent as possible.

 _Just wish I could enjoy the pictures…_ Kagome thought, though she didn't say or do anything to dampen the mood.

"Well go ahead," she said instead. "Get it over with."

With that said, she turned to pose next to Yasha, and murmured quietly and only somewhat playfully for him to forgive her for this torture. Atsuko ignored the jab and, squealing in delight, merrily clicked away, while Inuyasha leaned down to whisper in Kagome's ear, with an obvious teasing edge to his voice, that she was going to owe him one for this.

Letting them go after a moment, Kagome's mother told them with a laugh to go have a good time. Inuyasha didn't need to be told twice. Opening the door, he escorted Kagome out, his date holding on to her folded cane and small clutch purse together in her right hand while _his_ right hand held on to her left. He led her then, around the shrine grounds and down the steps to the car waiting below. Opening her door for her, he waited until Kagome was settled then closed her door for her as well before walking around the car and getting in the driver's seat.

"I hope you're hungry," he said conversationally as they started down the road.

"Starving," she joked. "I skipped lunch. Since you said you were taking me to a French restaurant and that I could order whatever I wanted, I decided to make sure I could really take you up on that!"

He laughed at that, which had Kagome giggling as well. She didn't know, now, why she had been so nervous before. Sure, this was their first date, and _her_ first date since high school, but she _knew_ Yasha, at least casually enough to feel comfortable joking around with him like that, and besides that she also reminded herself again in that moment that this was _his_ first date _ever_. If anyone had a right to be nervous, it was him. She didn't need the ability to know what people were feeling to understand that much.

She would do her best to put his mind at ease.

"Thank you so much for asking me out," she said then. "I really like you, but I probably wouldn't have ever been brave enough to ask you out myself. I'm looking forward to tonight."

"Me too," he replied without hesitation. "Actually, I've been wanting to ask you out for months now," he admitted, coming to a stop at a red light.

He took advantage of the moment to turn his head and look at her. Really look at her. Sitting in his car, looking as gorgeous as ever. How had this moment in time truly come to pass? Perhaps the kami did not hate him, after all.

"I'm glad I finally worked up the courage," he added then.

"Me too," she replied, mirroring his words from a moment ago.

Arriving at Rêve D'or a few short minutes later, Inuyasha pulled into the valet parking area, while nonchalantly informing Kagome where they were so that she wouldn't be startled when somebody else opened her door for her when she knew he hadn't exited the car yet.

It was the little considerations like that that really had Kagome smitten with her date so far. Yasha not only took her blindness into consideration without making her feel uncomfortable about it, but doing so seemed to be second nature to him, like he didn't even have to think about what he said or did around her in order to make sure it wasn't offensive.

When the valet attendant opened her door she smiled up at him as she made to get out, or at least in his general direction, and catching on in an instant the attendant offered her his arm to grip as she stood, in a professional manner of course, and she thanked him accordingly. Yasha was there the next moment, after receiving his claim slip for the car, and instantly noticing that Kagome had left her cane in the car, he acknowledged this fact by politely replacing the attendant's arm with is own.

"Shall we?" was all he said, and Kagome reached across a moment to pat his arm with her free hand while maintaining her grip.

"Let's."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

As they approached the glass doors another attendant opened the door for them, and Inuyasha thanked him as they stepped inside. Because Inuyasha had already told Kagome he was taking her to Rêve D'or, a French restaurant, she knew not to remove her shoes, so avoiding _that_ faux pas she walked smoothly with Inuyasha's lead up to the maître d'.

"Reservations for Taisho," Inuyasha said, with all the confidence of somebody who could buy the place.

He actually could.

His father paid him a ridiculous amount of money, especially considering it was just supposed to be hush money, but Inuyasha suspected there was an element of pride involved. Illegitimate son or not, he was still a Taisho – Toga had actually insisted he possess the family name, when one might assume he'd have wanted the opposite – and Inuyasha suspected his monthly deposits were Toga's way of making sure his second son was well taken care of.

If so, he'd achieved that goal. Inuyasha never came close to spending the amount of money he reiceved every month, and as a result his savings was astronomical, even after buying Mushin's Noodles.

"Ah yes. Right this way sir," the maître d' said, snapping him out of his musings.

As the man found their reservation and escorted them to their table, Kagome did an expert job of not showing her surprise at hearing Yasha's surname. Taisho was a rare family name, among humans and youkai alike. In fact, she only knew of one youkai family that bore that name, and only because they were so renowned and she was familiar with youkai royalty thanks to her miko training. But all youkai surnames originally came from humans, from back when they'd decided to adopt them, and the human Taisho line was also alive and well. That Yasha was a member...

He'd told her he was rich, but she never would have fathomed to what degree. Something as important yet as paradoxically trivial as his family name had simply never come up. Especially since he had implied he and his mother were estranged from his father. In fact, were it not for his wealthy father apparently deciding to provide for Yasha and his mother, Kagome had gotten the distinct impression that Yasha's life would have been very different. Being a Taisho, even if he were an illegitimate one that stayed out of the limelight, had definitely guaranteed him a better life than most bastard sons could ever dream of. She was so very grateful, for the both of them, that his father was an honorable enough man to take care of his son financially, if nothing else.

Not that she was only interested in him for his money and would not have wanted to date him had he been poor, but she knew the chances were good that they never would have even met in the first place had his situation been different, or even if they had still spoken from time to time, if he had still frequented the noodle shop, she certainly never would have approached him to thank him for saving Mushin's Noodles, because he wouldn't have. And he probably never would have braved asking her out on a date, either, since even as a rich man he had been hesitant to do so. Then the noodle shop would have closed, and she would've probably never heard from him again.

She was glad that wasn't the case.

Keeping her random 'what if' thoughts to a bare minimum, Kagome wasn't as sidetracked as she'd been a couple of days ago when she'd nearly missed her bus, and so when they arrived at their table she went with the flow as Yasha helped her to have a seat in the chair the maître d' had pulled out for her.

"Your waiter will be with you shortly."

With that, he left Kagome and Inuyasha alone. Inuyasha picked up his menu.

"Do you have a general idea of what you'd like to have, like say beef, chicken or fish, or would you just like me to read the entire menu to you?" he asked quietly and politely.

"Do you mind reading it?" she asked in turn. "I could probably bluff my way through and just say I'll have the chicken, or whatever, but I want to know what they actually have. If possible, I want to try something weird I've never eaten before."

He chuckled a little at that.

"Oh, it's very possible," he said. "I've only been here a couple of times with my mom on her birthday, but they serve food here even _I'd_ never had before."

"I'm not surprised," she quipped. "I didn't think you ever ate anything other than ramen."

He chuckled again at the dig, and would have replied with a quip of his own but their waiter chose that moment to arrive and take their drink orders, including asking if regular water from the pitcher he was carrying would be all right or if they'd prefer sparkling water. With Kagome answering that regular water was just fine, he filled their water glasses from his pitcher, and then after Inuyasha said they weren't going to be making a selection from the wine list – they'd already discussed the pros and cons of alcohol during the drive, and his low tolerance (as a human) was definitely a con – the waiter collected their empty wine glasses while making a mental note of their regular drink orders, both of them opting for tea since the restaurant offered a few uniquely French blends.

Going over the menu with Kagome after their waiter left to get their drinks, Inuyasha deliberately didn't tell her any of the prices, and when she asked between two main course options which one was less expensive his reply was not to worry about it. He also explained that each side dish needed to be ordered separately from the main protein, and that she should feel free to order as many separate components as she wanted.

"Even if it's just to taste it," he insisted. "You certainly don't have to try to stuff yourself. And anything you love but can't finish you can take with you."

"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly. "I would think taking leftovers home from a fancy restaurant like this was frowned upon."

"Not to your face it won't be," he answered. "Who gives a damn what anyone actually thinks? They'll do it. Besides, I doubt the staff even cares. Probably prefer seeing the food go home than get tossed. And if any of the other patrons glare at us leaving with doggie bags I'll just glare at 'em right back."

She chuckled a little at that, and smiling to himself, loving the sound of her laugh, he then got back to reading the various food options to her. There was even a separate prix fixe menu, but she ultimately decided to just select items from the standard menu.

After getting her entire meal figured out, starting with an appetizer of a half dozen oysters with caviar Inuyasha had promised to eat if it turned out she didn't like them, he then began describing the appearance of the room to her. She had, politely, asked him to, and he was more than happy to oblige. While he didn't know what kind of accident had blinded her – or even if it'd been an 'accident' at all – she _had_ shared with him that it had happened roughly three years ago, so that meant she still remembered, rather vividly, what the world around her looked like.

"It's a single large, softly lit room," he began. "No booths, it's all just tables. The floor is white tile that must be dirt resistant 'cause there ain't a speck anywhere. The walls are white and gold wallpaper, mostly white with gold being in some kinda fancy swirly pattern." He paused a moment then said, "Sorry, that's not very helpful, is it?"

"It's perfectly fine," she replied honestly. "I don't need to know exactly what the gold filigree looks like. It's good enough that I can now envision that I'm in a soft white and gold room, as opposed to something completely different like if everything had been dark brown woods and rich reds."

"You're describing Aka Ryu," he said with a chuckle. "I'll take you there on our second date."

Her heart did a little flutter at how confident he sounded.

"Sounds like a plan," she replied, unable to stop her smile from spreading even if she'd wanted to.

Grinning himself, even though she couldn't see it he was sure she could hear it in his voice when he got back to describing the restaurant they were in for their _first_ date.

"The tables and chairs are ornately carved and gilt in gold, the chair cushions and table cloths all cream. You almost can't see anything of the tables besides the cloth unless you look down and notice their legs poking out from behind the fabric, which like the chair legs are curved with ball feet."

He paused again, this time because their waiter was back with their teas and to take their orders.

With Kagome having already told him what all she wanted to eat, Inuyasha went ahead and placed both their orders, beginning with the gentlemanly "The lady will have..." for Kagome's selections. The only thing he altered was the number of oysters, ordering a full dozen for the both of them to share. If she really didn't like them then he could easily eat her half as well, but he was pretty sure she'd love them as much as he did, which was why he'd wanted his own at the thought of her having them.

"Very good, sir," the waiter said when he was done taking their entire order, and as the waiter headed away Inuyasha was actually grateful Kagome couldn't see his expression as he did his beset to get his wayward emotions back under control.

He just wasn't used to being treated with respect, and while he could never forget even for a moment that he was in human form it still sometimes caught him by surprise to be shown respect that _should_ have been his birthright every day of the month.

And he didn't mean the respect of being a Taisho.

He just wanted to be treated like a normal person, no different from anyone else. Was that too much to ask?

It didn't take him long to realize it was probably a stigmatization that Kagome understood all too well, which made him feel even more guilty of originally keeping what he was a secret from her, wanting so desperately for someone to treat him like a regular person, for someone to honestly _think_ he was a normal person, that he'd exploited her disability for his own selfish gain.

That would end, tonight, and damn the consequences. But baby steps. He definitely didn't want to out himself during dinner and put her in the horrible position of needing to not cause a scene and storm out because of the simple fact that she needed his guidance in order to leave. He wanted her to actually enjoy her meal, not become so angry with him for the deception that it would ruin her dining experience.

So he would tell her _after_ dinner, during the drive home. If she refused to let him escort her to the front door he'd let her go, because her cane was in his car and he knew she knew the way. She took the bus to and from work by herself five days a week, after all. He was so proud of her, for how independent she truly was. As a canine, he relied more heavily on his hearing and sense of smell than sight, and even so, the thought of going blind was a frightening one.

It would need to be very powerful holy energy in order to _permanently_ blind him, though, so he knew it wasn't anything he really had to worry about. Not with his youkai healing. Which was why he didn't wish he was human, and didn't really care for his human nights, although he still took advantage of them for the once-a-month chance to be treated normally, even though what he _really_ wanted was for hanyou to just be treated like decent people by human and youkai society.

If hanyou weren't normally sterile, if more diluted mixes like one-quarter humans or one-quarter youkai were possible, then people would have probably gotten used to the idea of mixed blood, and while both sides would probably still have their purists, most people would consider it no big deal, just like mixing among the different humans and different youkai wasn't that big of a deal anymore. His half-brother Sesshoumaru was mated to a wind-youkai and nobody cared that his pups wouldn't be pure inu, yet _his_ mixed blood was still taboo.

The argument, by those against it, was that hanyou being sterile was proof that the kami didn't approve of the pairings.

Of course, in reality, hanyou weren't truly _sterile_ sterile, although everyone had thought so for centuries. In actuality they were only sterile while in their hanyou form, and with modern medical intervention it was possible for hanyou to reproduce while transformed as either a human, or full-youkai for those powerful enough to do it, but even so it was enough for the naysayers to stick to their guns. If medical intervention was required, they claimed, then it was still going against nature.

Never mind all the pure blooded humans out there that needed medical intervention in order to reproduce, for whatever reason. That didn't count, apparently.

And what the hell was he doing thinking about children, anyway?! He was getting _way_ too ahead of himself.

Fortunately, not too much time had actually passed in real life during his mind's little wandering off stunt, and Kagome was still happily sipping at her tea, letting the cup warm her hands.

"What about the china?" she asked him then, and since he had already pulled himself out of his musings he was right there with her, so she was never aware he had become so lost in thought, as he told her that all of the dishes, including the tea cups and saucers, were simple white porcelain.

Then their waiter was back with their dozen oysters, and Inuyasha assisted Kagome only because it was something she had never eaten before. Preparing one of the oysters, making sure the meat was loose, he handed it to her and instructed her on how to slurp it, like doing a shot.

"You can't take little nibbles. You can't dip a toe in. Just gotta dive on into the deep end head first, so to speak."

He knew it was okay to use that analogy and it wouldn't hurt her feelings. She'd told him casually during one of their minor conversations a year or so ago that she loved to swim and hadn't let her blindness keep her away from the public pools. She had even volunteered to be the pursuer during games of Marco Polo more than once, with the little kids who'd been using the pool at the same time. She'd refused to let depression get her down, and while she was disappointed sometimes, with the direction her life had taken, she tried to stay upbeat about it and find happiness in the little things.

Like trying new foods. And the oyster _smelled_ good so taking a chance, she said "Here goes nothing," and slurped it.

Inuyasha watched her face like a hawk for any sign that she found it disguising and was trying to force herself to just swallow it to avoid embarrassing herself, but it never came. What did come was a huge grin sprouting across her face after she'd swallowed it.

"Told ya you'd like it."

"Yes you did," she agreed. "Now I want to try one with the caviar."

He assisted her with that as well, scooping a little bit of the caviar onto the next oyster after separating it from the shell for her. Then after handing it to her he began devouring his own half dozen, because even with a human nose they smelled heavenly and he was hungry!

After they'd each eaten their last oyster he figured it was time to start the 'first date' conversation, as it were, but since he was in no hurry to tell her about himself – and he didn't want to be one of those guys who only talked about themselves, anyway – Inuyasha started the conversation with, "So, tell me about yourself."

Smiling gently, after taking a sip of her tea, she asked, "What would you like to know?"

"Whatever you feel comfortable telling me. I just want to get to know you better."

Her smile grew even larger, and he couldn't help but grin as well.

"Well," she started then, "you already know I'm from a shrine family."

"Yeah," he agreed conversationally.

"My whole family has reiki," she continued then, unaware of the momentary flash of shock in her date's eyes. "It's on both sides of the family tree, my mother coming from another shrine family before she married my father. She did it for honor's sake, because her parents wanted her to marry someone with reiki, but fortunately she actually loved my father, so they were very happy together before he died in a car accident when I was ten."

"I'm so sorry..."

"That's all right, it was a long time ago, now." She'd cried her tears for losing her father, but now, she much preferred to just look back on the time they had together with a smile.

Inuyasha was hesitant to bring it up, but tentatively, he started to say, "I...I can actually sense reiki in others, but-"

Her sightless eyes widened a bit behind her glasses at that revelation, and she knew exactly where he was going with it.

"Oh," she interrupted. "Yeah um...my reiki...my reiki apparently decided to seal itself, after my accident," she confessed. She'd been planning on telling him that part next, anyway, but had been caught off guard by the revelation that he had the ability to sense it for himself.

Reiki users were still somewhat rare. Having barely enough to sense it in others without being able to perform purifications yourself was slightly more common, but even so, 'normal' humans vastly outnumbered people with even the slightest drop of reiki. What were the odds that he would be one of them? But she was glad. And hopefully, he was glad to learn that she wasn't the Higurashi 'dud', since it was possible for reiki users to produce 'normal' offspring without the gift.

Figuring he deserved to hear the whole story, now, before he could inquire further she continued with, "It was during my miko training, in fact." Gesturing briefly at her eyes with her left hand, she explained, "My first time out in the field."

Pausing, she swallowed hard and took a sip of her water.

Watching as she did so, Inuyasha didn't have to know the details of her accident to understand that this had to be a hard thing for her to talk about. He'd seen the scars. It had obviously been a traumatic experience, and to now know it'd had something to do with fighting an evil spirit of some sort...he wouldn't make her talk about it if she didn't want to.

"That's all right," he began as she sat her water glass back down. "You don't have to-"

"It's not that," she interrupted again. "It's just...I panicked. It's my fault. If I hadn't-"

"Oh no you don't," he interrupted himself that time. "I don't care how or why it happened but it was _not_ your fault."

At his words, she once again did that eerie thing where she was looking right at him even though she couldn't she him. Even as a human he could make out her eyes through the tinted glass of her shades. Sometimes he wondered if she _could_ actually still make out shapes, or light vs. shadow, but it was also possible she was just able to pinpoint the precise location of his mouth and subconsciously knew where his eyes should then be located. He figured that was a safe enough question to ask to get her to stop 'looking' at him like that, at least. Her expression betrayed her desire to argue the point of blame, but even if it _was_ technically her fault, he did _not_ want her beating herself up about it.

"And oh hey," he spoke back up before she could, his nonchalant tone instantly putting her at ease. "I'm just curious, so if it's none of my business just say so, but are you _completely_ blind?" Figuring he better explain, he quickly added, "You just seem to have a knack for always looking me right in the eyes."

Said eyes widened again before she lowered her head a bit, but the small smile that tugged at the ends of her lips told him he hadn't accidentally embarrassed her.

"It's total darkness," she told him then. "But Mama's told me before that I look _her_ in the eyes, too." Bringing her head back up again, she shrugged. "I guess my eyeballs just automatically zero in on the sound of someone's voice and know where to position themselves when I'm talking to someone; I don't do it on purpose."

He could understand that, of course, because his ears, or at least his canine ones, actually did the same thing. He actually had to stop himself from just blurting that factoid out, too, but thinking of his doggie nature in that moment, and the fact that he now knew she was completely blind, did inspire another innocent question.

"Mind if I ask how come you don't have a guide dog?"

She stiffened a little at the question, which he wasn't expecting, and without his sense of smell he had no way of knowing exactly what she was feeling. He had no clue she'd suddenly had to fight down a jolt of irrational fear. It had looked more like bristling to him, as if she were feeling defensive, and so he plowed forward under that assumption, making sure to be polite, as well as quiet although nobody else in the restaurant seemed to be paying them any attention and the two closest tables to their own were currently empty.

"I know they can be really expensive," he began gently, "so if money's the problem, you just say the word. And _no_..." he continued on, grateful for his human emotions making it easier for him to speak so openly about his feelings, "you aren't some charity case. I really care about you, Kagome, and since I _do_ have the money, I just want to be able to help you out in any way I can."

She had calmed back down by the time he finished speaking, realizing where he was coming from and knowing he hadn't meant anything hurtful by the question, but before she could explain, it was right in that moment that their main courses arrived. Letting the matter go for the time being, then, Kagome was all smiles as she listened to their waiter place their dinner plates before them.

"Bon appétit," he said before leaving.

Thanking him, Kagome dug right in, and Inuyasha followed her lead. All was quiet for the next few minutes except for utensils clanking and Kagome's occasional murmur of how good everything tasted.

Finally, though, after pausing in her eating to have a sip of tea, Kagome felt she'd left his innocent question unanswered long enough. She truly appreciated that he hadn't hounded her for an answer, before mentally groaning at her choice of words. The world was just fully of unintentional dog puns. Feeling brave enough to give him the answer he deserved, she blurted it out before going back to her food.

"I'm afraid of dogs."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

 _I'm afraid of dogs_.

The words echoed loudly in his head, and not for the first time, Inuyasha was grateful she couldn't see his face. It took him a second to compose himself, but he knew he had to respond before letting too much time pass so he tried his best.

"Oh?" he replied, cringing at the obvious worry present in his tone of voice.

If Kagome picked up on it though, she didn't comment on it, instead simply continuing to explain the reason for her phobia, plus the reason why, in her opinion, the accident had been her fault.

"It was...it was an inugami that attacked me," she said while reaching up with her left hand to ghost it over her face without quite touching.

Inuyasha felt the world drop out beneath his feet at her confession.

He cleared his throat.

"An inugami?"

Those beastly things actually _could_ be rather dangerous, he knew.

Nodding, Kagome went ahead and told him the rest of the story.

"It was just a little over three years ago, shortly after my twenty-second birthday," she began. "I'd been practicing for seven years by that point, ever since I started to show purification abilities shortly after turning fifteen. I'd always had special senses, the ability to feel reiki or youki in others, and I even had the rarer ability to 'see' a person's soul, for lack of a better term, and know what they're feeling, but the ability to channel reiki oneself usually surfaces during adolescence and it was the same with me. Then the _real_ training began."

Pausing, she took another sip of tea.

"According to my sensei, I showed real potential. She made several shikigami for me to fight, gave me tainted objects to purify, etc. Jii-chan even started having me help with purifications at our shrine, because it's been a service we've offered for years. Bring in your tainted object and we'll cleanse it for you. I was a natural, he said, because I didn't even have to think about it. The tainted objects just automatically purified when I held them. Eventually, though, when my sensei and grandfather both thought I was ready, it was time for my first real field test, as it were."

"You make it sound like military training," Inuyasha interjected softly, just trying to think of something to say.

She just shrugged.

"It sort of is, but we're not soldiers," Kagome replied, in regard to reiki wielding humans as a whole. "Not anymore. We're more like animal control," she explained. "It's not like there's going to be any more conflicts between us and the people-like youkai. They just want to live their own lives in peace, same as anyone else."

He had to admit, a huge part of him was very relieved to hear her say that last part, especially after her 'animal control' comment. There _were_ those among the human purists who considered so-called 'humanoid' youkai animals, too, but Kagome had already told him the beast that had attacked her had been an inugami, so she really did mean animals. Demonic animals instead of mortal – or as the humans called them, 'regular' – animals. They _did_ require a different kind of solution to deal with them as opposed to mortal animals, he knew, but usually that was the taijiya's job. Reiki users were required to purify away any residual evil energy as a result of a lower youkai's presence, but while they also had the ability to seal youkai without harming them, and could therefore deal with the threat more directly without necessarily killing it – because killing was a last resort those days – reiki users didn't usually like to 'get their hands dirty' as Miroku had jokingly called it.

In fact, the monk-turned-line cook had first met his wife when he had been called in by her father to help with a demonic bear problem, but all he had done was use his reiki to drive the monster out of hiding so that her family could incapacitate it. Back in the day the taijiya were exterminators, and they still took on that aspect of the job if it was something like a youkai rat infestation, but a lot of the time they just knocked the larger beasts out and returned them to the wild. They only killed the larger, endangered species when they really had no choice, same as the humans who tried to capture mortal wild animals on the loose to return to the wild versus killing them. It really just depended on the circumstances.

Lower demonic animals were only marginally more intelligent than their mortal counterparts, and were even considered animals by the youkai who could assume humanoid form, so there was truly no bad blood between higher youkai and the human taijiya and reiki users. Even though for the most part their two species didn't interact, most youkai actually admired the strength of those humans and respected them more for it, and Inuyasha was no exception. It didn't bother him in the slightest to know that Kagome was from a shrine family, and had actually been a miko herself at one point, although the loss of her reiki definitely confused and concerned him. He'd never heard of such a thing happening. Silently, he cursed the kami for whatever kind of cruel game they were playing. If her reiki hadn't decided to seal itself then he wouldn't have had to build up the courage to tell her what he was. And how the hell was he supposed to tell her _now?_ But one thing at a time. If he remained quiet for too long she might start to suspect that something was wrong.

"Do you know how your powers became sealed?" he asked her gently.

She shrugged again.

"Honestly, I have no idea. According to Kaede-sensei, if anything, my blindness should have made my powers even more focused. I guess it's psychological?"

Shrugging, she took another sip of her tea.

"My powers saved my life, though."

His eyes widened a bit at that. Even though he knew what had attacked her, and had seen the results of that attack, he'd still for some reason not thought of the possibility that she'd actually almost died.

"We were called out to some man's house to purify a beast of his own creation before it managed to kill him," she continued without prompting, as if sensing he'd been struck speechless for the moment. "He'd studied the old black magics, learned how to make an inugami, and had turned his white Akita into one," she added, sounding both like she was reliving the horror and grateful for the opportunity to finally get it off her chest, as if she'd kept it all bottled up until now.

Perhaps she had.

 _Hasn't she told anyone else the details before?_ He wondered. _Her mother? A therapist?_

And he didn't miss that bit about it being an Akita. It'd just _had_ to be an Akita, didn't it? And a _white_ one at that. Were the kami deliberately trying to fuck with him? That was the breed of dog his demonic canine lineage was most closely related to. The inugami had probably looked like a miniature version of his father and half-brother in their true forms.

 _Why me...?_

Of course, he wasn't really that selfish. He knew this wasn't about _him_. But still...

Unable to see his troubled expression, and with him making sure not to give anything away with a sound, Kagome continued.

"That poor dog," she said sympathetically. "He didn't deserve what happened to him."

The practice of making an inugami _was_ rather barbaric. Inuyasha shuddered at the thought while unconsciously reaching up to grab his neck. No wonder it had turned on its owner. Most of them did.

"I don't _hate_ dogs," she added then, "and logically, I know they're not all to blame for what happened to me, but I...I definitely don't think I could ever _own_ one, or be near one, after what happened. I'll never forget, it was the last thing I saw, that white dog-like _monster_ leaping at me out of nowhere..."

She started to shake a little, and without thinking about it he reached across the table and placed his right hand over her left where it was resting near her plate, offering her whatever emotional support he could with a gentle squeeze. Smiling at him then, she retracted her hand and placed both of her hands in her lap, trying not to fidget.

"So anyway, there I was on my first assignment, bow and arrow at the ready 'cause we knew going in this was the real deal, and I'm a _good_ shot with the bow, or at least I was, when I could see what I was aiming at, and yet in that moment, when the inugami emerged, I froze," she said. "He lunged at me, and I tried too late to get off a shot. He pushed me down, landed on top of me, and I just remember looking up at his fangs, his open mouth right above my face."

Unbeknownst to Kagome, their waiter had started to come by to see how they were doing while she was talking, but Inuyasha, ever aware of his surroundings as he was, noticed the man's approach in time to silently gesture for him to go away, not in a _rude_ way (he hoped) but rather, with a second gesture towards Kagome that brought the waiter's attention to the fact that she was in the middle of telling him something lengthy that he did not want interrupted. Being smart and quick on the update, and _not_ wanting to upset someone as important as a Taisho, their waiter quickly nodded his understanding and headed in the other direction.

Inuyasha was glad the man hadn't gotten withing hearing distance as Kagome continued to describe the horrors she'd been forced to endure.

"I thought he was going to bite my face off, and he probably was, but before he could, some of his poisonous saliva dripped onto my face, including right into my eyes."

He did make a sound at that, cringing with a sharp inhale through his teeth. He couldn't help it.

Kagome only agreed with the sentiment.

"Yeah," she said. "It was as bad as it sounds. That probably would've killed me, itself, if I'd been a normal human, but fortunately, while screaming pain, a giant blast of purifying light burst out of me, or at least, that's the way Kaede-sensei tells it. I passed out. But I also apparently vaporized the inugami and purified the acid-like drool, otherwise, even if I wouldn't have died since Kaede-sensei was there and could have purified me, it would have done a _lot_ more damage in the few seconds it would have taken her to get to me."

Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly, then said, "I know I'm lucky to be alive."

She chuckled a bit darkly.

"Still, you can't say it's not my fault. If-"

"Oh yes I can," he interrupted quietly.

She shook her head.

"If I hadn't froze-"

"Okay fine, if you hadn't froze you could've shot it and not been blinded. Is that what you want to hear?" he said then, but his voice was just as quiet, his tone just as gentle, as he'd been using for the last few minutes, and she looked taken aback at the unexpected words but not slapped in the face as though betrayed.

He quickly continued.

"I've made mistakes. Hell, I _am_ a mistake," he braved confessing, "but none of us can change the past, so we can either accept our lots in life and learn to live with it, or we can 'what if' ourselves to death."

Pausing, he took a sip of his water to wet his suddenly very dry mouth.

"So what happened, it was horrible, but yes, at least you survived, and Miroku always says that all things happen for a reason, so maybe the kami knew what they were doing, even if it doesn't make sense to us right now."

Like why he had been allowed to meet and fall for a woman who couldn't judge him at first glance only to find out that if _she_ ever found out what he was, she'd be terrified of him. He'd been worried she might be prejudiced, wouldn't want to be in a relationship with a hanyou for that reason, but never would he have fathomed that she had a phobia tailor made to guarantee there could never be anything between them.

He still believed she deserved to know the truth, if he was going to pursue a relationship with her – knowing about her phobia now, continuing to conceal what he was if they kept on dating would be downright cruel of him – but on the other hand, how could he possibly tell her now and risk triggering her very obvious PTSD? Hell, she'd started shaking at the simple question of owning a guide dog, which wouldn't even be a demonic animal! She'd admitted to his face that she was afraid of dogs, and could never own _or be near_ one, and here he was, a half human mutation of basically the exact same type of creature that'd attacked her.

He had thought he was afraid of telling her what he was because of the possibility that she would no longer be interested in him, or worse, might even be disgusted by him and angry about the deception, but never had the possibility of her being _afraid_ of him entered his mind, and that changed _everything_. He knew he needed to tell her if he wanted to pursue a romantic relationship with her, so the only reasonable solution, then, as painful as it was, was to no longer pursue such a relationship. His inu instinct to protect her was already so strong, he would protect her even from himself.

"You're right, of course," she spoke up suddenly, after taking a few more bites of her food, and it took him a second to realize exactly what she was agreeing with him on.

 _Oh yeah, the 'all things happen for a reason' shit..._

He'd have to figure something out, but he wasn't about to ruin her night, and it already looked as if reliving the trauma she'd been forced to endure had come close to doing just that. She was trying to smile, for him, but it wasn't quite as sincere as it'd previously been.

Slyly, he gestured for their waiter to come over now, figuring they could both use the distraction.

"How was everything," said waiter asked as soon as he arrived at their table. "Was everything to your satisfaction?"

In true Kagome fashion, she flashed their waiter a beautiful, genuine smile.

"Oh, it was all fabulous," she answered honestly. "Best food I've ever eaten."

"Wonderful. I'm very happy to hear that," he said, obviously pleased. Seeing as they were both nearly finished with their meals, he added, "Can I interest either of you in some dessert?"

"Oh, try and stop me," Kagome joked, smiling again when she heard the waiter chuckle a little.

He then listed off their limited selection of ridiculously high end desserts, which included things like a trio of sorbets with fresh berries and mint, and a molten chocolate truffle soufflé, which was what Inuyasha and Kagome each opted for, respectively.

"Excellent choices," their waiter said before walking away.

"So enough about me," Kagome said after only a moment of silence between them. "I do believe you'd said there were things about you that you wanted to tell me, so now it's my turn to ask, tell me about yourself."

 _Crap_...

She was right, of course, and he knew he could neither brush her off nor lie to her, so he would be as honest as he could be, except for omitting that one very important key detail. Maybe after she heard the rest she would lose interest in him, anyway.

"Well, as I told you before, I have plenty of money thanks to my father..." She nodded. "And I'm sure you noticed when I told the maître d' that my family name is Taisho."

Nodding again, she blushed prettily and lowered her head.

She thought she needed to show him respect as a Taisho.

Even if he were human, some people wouldn't think such respect was deserved after learning this next part.

"The truth is, I'm a bastard son."

Her eyes widened a bit at that, as she lifted her head back up to seemingly look right at him.

"At least I'm a rich bastard instead of a poor bastard," he joked with a bit of a forced chuckle as he continued, "but I've never met my father, not in person, anyway. We've only ever spoken over the phone a few times, after I was older, and the money he gives my mother and me is like...glorified child support. He's _way_ richer than I am, and I'm not an heir. I get the money he gives me, which is distributed through a trust he created for me, but that's it. That's my allotment. It's not a 'fair' share when you consider what my half-brother gets, but still, I'm not complaining. My mother and I would've been dirt poor otherwise."

Downing a good bit of his water, he added, "My father is...a very important person in his world, but it's a world I was not born into and am not a part of. I guess nobody's perfect, though, 'cause he'd been having an affair with my mom, while already married with a son. My older half-brother hates my existence 'cause I'm pretty sure his parents split up because of the scandal that was my birth. Like that's _my_ fault. And my mother was disowned by _her_ parents for getting pregnant by a married man. Sometimes, I honestly don't know why she didn't just abort me..."

Letting his words trail off, Inuyasha knew deep down inside that that wasn't entirely true, though it _would_ have made her life so much easier if she had, in one way, at least. But on the other hand, she wouldn't be nearly as rich as she was now, and even though he knew she hadn't kept him solely for a payday it was certainly a nice bonus. But the lie was in saying that he didn't know why she had kept him, even before knowing his father would support them. He knew. She had kept him for the simple fact that he was a part of his father, and she'd simply loved his father too much to not keep the 'precious gift' he had given her, as she'd called him when he was little. For keeping him, and enduring all the hardships she'd faced as a result, all the prejudice, and the dishonor she'd placed upon her family – according to _them_ , at least – Inuyasha was eternally grateful.

He then told Kagome about how his father had decided to be as honorable as he could be, under the circumstances, and how he'd taken care of his mother from the moment of discovering she was pregnant, paying for her luxury apartment when her parents had kicked her out of the house at age nineteen.

"He was even there for my birth, according to my mother, and insisted she give me his family name instead of her own, although in the very few conversations I've had with him over the phone he's made it explicitly clear that as an illegitimate son I've got no claims on the whole family fortune."

He paused when he spotted their waiter on his way back with their desserts.

Thanking him once the sweet treats were on the table, the waiter told them both to enjoy and then headed away again.

"Did he bring the bill, too?" Kagome asked after he left. "I know it's none of my business, but I'm morbidly curious."

Inuyasha chuckled, not at her question, but at her comment about being 'morbidly curious' about how much their dinner cost. When they did get the check, if she really wanted to know, he'd tell her, but in the meantime he explained, "Nah, in this type of place they don't bring the check until you ask for it. I bet after we finish our desserts he'll ask if we want anything else, like after dinner coffees."

"That's a thing?"

"Yup," he answered.

"Well we can skip that part," she said then, "'cause I definitely don't need to be drinking coffee at this time of night."

"You could get decaf," he pointed out.

"Then what's the point? That's not real coffee."

He chuckled again.

"You've got a point."

"So where were we?" Kagome asked then, in between savoring spoonfuls of chocolate goodness. "You said your father said you weren't entitled to your fair share of the family fortune, but then he turns around and gives you a trust fund anyway?"

"Even though he gives me more money a month than I can spend, and I've got so much built up in savings as a result that if the monthly payments stopped today I'd still be set for life so long as I lived modestly, and there's no cap in my trust and it really is just a monthly payment for life that he's deducted from the family fortune, it's scarily still just a drop in the bucket compared to what that total fortune really is," he told her.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Well, then I'm glad for you, that he didn't just dump your mother when she got pregnant, and instead he did the right thing, making sure you two were going to be taken care of. And if he gave you the family name, then it sounds like he's not ashamed of you, or wants to hide you."

"He wants me out of the way, to not stir things up, as it were, but everyone close to him knows I exist," he confirmed then. "They just like to pretend I don't."

"Well then no wonder you favored a little place like Mushin's Noodles, if you're just not even really into the whole rich person scene because of how your father's family is towards you."

"Yeah, exactly. I'm not really into all this," he confessed. "But _you_ definitely deserved the best night out I could give you, so it was worth playing the part to bring you here."

"Well, if your goal was to give me the best night out that you could, then I'd say you succeeded," she told him then, a gentle smile on her lips that twisted up into a playful smirk. "Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed," she joked.

He laughed, and her smile widened. She loved the sound of his laugh.

Seeing her grinning at him like that, it already broke his heart, that he was going to have to break hers, but hopefully she wasn't in love with him yet, like he was her. He had no idea how he was supposed to tell her he didn't think they should see each other anymore, especially after he'd already told her he'd take her to Aka Ryu for their second date.

 _Open mouth, insert foot_...

Maybe if he pretended he _owned_ a dog, instead of confessing that he was one? But he'd have to find the right moment to mention something tactfully. He didn't want to just 'oh by the way' her with something like that.

Deciding to not worry about it right in that second, as soon as they both finished their desserts he flagged their waiter down and asked for the check, and he was already ready with his credit card to hand over to the man when he came back without even looking at the bill. When the receipt that he had to sign came back along with his card, Inuyasha told Kagome the amount, only because she insisted, and then she playfully pretended to faint in her chair.

"Don't think I won't just carry you outta here, 'cause I will," he teased, which had her sitting up straight again and laughing at herself.

Ready to depart, Inuyasha guided Kagome out of the restaurant the same way he'd guided her in, and then once they were outside he handed the validated claim ticket for his car to the valet attendant.

Noticing a shiver run through Kagome's body he didn't hesitate to slip out of his suit jacket and drape it across her shoulders. She didn't even seem startled, instead just happily wrapping the warm fabric around herself, and he realized she must have heard him slipping out of it. It wasn't that she had super hearing, but it was a quiet night with nobody else outside talking, and she had simply learned to truly _listen_ to all of the sounds around her.

Which proved to be a good thing when a dog somewhere relatively nearby started barking. Kagome immediately flinched and reached out for his arm for support, and not saying anything about it right in that moment as the car arrived, he instead told her softly that the car was ready and then guided her into it. Once he was pulling away, though, he knew he couldn't disregard this one tiny favor of the kami. It gave him the perfect opening he needed without seeming out of place.

"You really are afraid of all dogs, aren't you?" He made sure to sound sad about this fact, which wasn't acting on his part in the slightest. He was just letting his true emotions show instead of concealing them.

"I'm sorry, I know it's silly..." she began, but then picking up on the tone of voice he'd used, like it broke his heart that she was afraid of dogs, Kagome suddenly had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Why do I not like the sound of your voice when you ask me that?"

He made a show of sighing loudly, as if deciding whether or not he should tell her.

"Let's just say, I'm definitely a dog person," he decided to confess, then. He was him-hawing around it, being deceptive without really lying, and if she clued in, asked him point blank if he himself was canine, he would be honest with her and fuck the consequences, because he could never outright lie to her, but hopefully he wouldn't have to.

"Oh gods...you own a dog, don't you?" she guessed instead, and he wouldn't lie, but he wouldn't deny it, either.

"Like I said, I'm a dog person."

"Well..." she began hesitantly then, taking his statement as an affirmative answer as like he had hoped she would. "I mean, maybe if it's a _little_ dog..."

She was trying not to hyperventilate. Really, she was. It wasn't like there was a dog in the car with her in that moment. And hell, it wasn't like her and Yasha were moving in together! So what if the man owned a dog? That didn't mean they couldn't still be friends, or even continue dating, so long as the dog never came along on any of their dates.

 _But isn't the point of dating someone to hope that there's a chance for a real connection between you?_

And let's be honest, even though she wasn't interested in Yasha for his money, the fact that he _was_ rich, and more importantly, that he didn't mind her blindness, had made him seem like the perfect catch, to her at least. He had claimed that he wasn't all that much of a catch, himself, but honestly, he could be covered head to toe in birthmarks for all she cared. It was what was on the _inside_ of a person's soul that mattered to her, and even though she'd lost the ability to _actually_ peer inside a person's soul, unless Yasha was one hell of an actor playing some kind of crazy long game, he seemed genuine enough to her. The fact that he was worried now, about her phobia, just went to show her how serious about her he was in return, if he was afraid that him owning a dog would be a deal breaker on her end.

But _was_ him owning a dog a deal breaker for her? Maybe they could work on it, together and with a therapist, and maybe she could try to get over her fear...

"A white Akita," he said then, breaking the growing silence between them, and her heart nearly flew up into her throat.

 _Fucking seriously?!_ she thought. Of all the dog breeds in the world that he could've owned, it had to be an Akita, and in fucking _white?_

"I..." he continued then, as if sensing where her thoughts had gone. Her expression had probably made it obvious. "I didn't want to say anything during dinner. I didn't want to make things uncomfortable for you."

That was considerate of him, she relented. And she also appreciated that he was telling her _now_ instead of not telling her at all. She'd have found out eventually, right? She definitely would have if they were ever going to take their relationship to the next level, and she still wanted to pursue a relationship with him, didn't she? Yes, yes she did. But why did the kami have to screw with her like this?! Here out of nowhere comes the perfect guy, who's nice, funny, caring, not bothered by her disability, and _rich_ as an awesome bonus just for the hell of it, and then he has to go and own the exact same type of dog that blinded her?

True, she'd bet his Akita wasn't demonic. It was just a normal, mortal dog, and probably gentle and loving, but could she face her fears for a man she barely knew?

A man she _wanted_ to get to know?

"Kagome?"

It took the former miko a moment to realize she hadn't said anything in a while. The bottom line was fairly simple, though. Did she still want to date Yasha?

 _Yes, yes I do_.

"I..." Clearing her throat, she tried again. "We'll have to take that...one step at a time, but...but if you are willing to be patient with me on that end, I'd still like to go on that second date, if you...if you still wanted to that is."

 _Yes!_ his heart screamed, although he knew he should start the process of brushing her off. Say something like he'd have to think about it, something to let her know he was unsure of their future now.

He couldn't do it, though. He knew he couldn't go through with that second date, either, especially since he would be his hanyou self and he couldn't risk her overhearing anyone making a comment about that, not to mention he wouldn't be able to pick her up at her house, but in that moment he just couldn't blow it off entirely, regardless.

"I'd love to," he said instead, though with some reservation to his tone of voice, trying to make himself sound unsure about it instead of giving her a definite guarantee. "Just let me get back to you on when."

If she sensed that he was setting himself up for the ability to blow her off later, she didn't comment on it, and when they arrived at the Higurashi Shrine she gratefully accepted his offer of walking her up to her door.

"All things happen for a reason," she said about halfway through their walk, once they reached the top of the shrine steps. "Maybe the kami put you into my life so that I could get over my fear of dogs."

That was a nice thought. The possibility had him smiling a little to himself as he glanced at the main shrine building on the left while they walked past it.

 _You guys here that?_ he thought. He wasn't sure if the kami could read his mind or not but he figured it was worth a try.

"Maybe," he agreed then.

Getting her to the front door, he greeted Mrs. Higurashi politely when she opened the door, then bidding Kagome a good night, he politely declined her mother's invitation to come in for a while. Not wanting Kagome to worry too much this first night, not wanting to sour what he still hoped had been a very special evening for her, he told her "See you at Mushin's," and then left, feeling conflicted from the smile his parting words had put across her lips.

Yes, see her at Mushin's, indeed. Unless he made himself scarce during her lunch breaks, but that was a ploy he'd work on gradually as the days turned into weeks until hopefully, she'd just lose interest in him, convinced he was a flake even if he meant well and that he just wasn't worth her patience anymore. Maybe he could convince her that the reason he wasn't a good catch was because he just didn't have his priorities straight. That would be the ideal situation, if he could actually get _her_ to break up with _him_ because she thought he had commitment issues.

"Of course, if you guys really _do_ have any say in all this destiny stuff, the best situation would be that me and her somehow get a happy ending. If you guys could figure out a way to make that work, that'd be awesome," he said quietly to the main shrine building as he passed it again on his way off the shrine grounds. "Please."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

The next day, since Kagome was off, she stayed home all day and assisted her grandfather as much as she could around the shrine grounds.

"I wish you could have met him," she said from her place leaning against one of the tables in the storage building.

It had been a total coincidence, but her grandfather had been assisting a fellow priest at another shrine the day before with purifying a large collection of tainted relics that had come into that shrine's possession, and the purification rituals had taken longer than anticipated.

Kagome felt guilty for her comment the instant she said it since she knew, had her powers been working, she could have purified everything herself in a fraction of the time and been back home with plenty of time to get ready for her date. It was her fault her grandfather had had to do it all himself.

"From the sound of things I'll be getting a second chance to meet him, yes?" Jii-chan answered with a playful note to his voice as he handed Kagome a small but somewhat heavy box.

Used to their routine, Kagome held on tight to the box while allowing her grandfather to move her through the building, almost like a puppet. It was easier for him to come up behind her and, with his hands on her shoulders, just steer her around all of the various tables and things stacked on the floor, rather than trying to give her directions. Reaching their destination, he turned her to face the shelves.

"The top shelf, if you don't mind," he said then.

Kagome lifted her arms up, easily remembering how high up the top shelf was located, and finding the edge of the shelf with the box she held, she then slid the box back into its place on the shelf between two other boxes. It was hard for her grandfather to lift his arms straight up above his head like that anymore, so she was happy to do things like that for him, even though she needed his help in return.

"Hopefully," she answered, in regard to his comment about having a second chance to meet Yasha. "He should be there on Tuesday when I take my lunch break, so I'll talk to him about it then."

In the meantime, her grandfather was going to be able to catalog the contents of a _lot_ of boxes, because she would need something to keep herself preoccupied, otherwise the temptation to just call Yasha might get too great. She could speak to him at the noodle shop in two days; she didn't want to seem desperate.

 _Even though I am_...

She was grateful for the distraction when her grandfather asked her to get down another box.

o o o

"So how did your date go?"

Looking up from his mountain of paperwork, Inuyasha gave Miroku a bittersweet smile.

"It was fabulous."

"Well that's _good_ isn't it?" Miroku asked. "Why the face? Did she not take the news well?"

They both knew what he was referring to.

"I didn't tell her."

Miroku sighed in exasperation.

"Yasha, you-"

"She's deathly afraid of dogs, Miroku," he explained then. "Especially Akita. Especially _white_ Akita. It was a white Akita inugami that blinded her. Nearly killed her before she managed to kill it with her powers. Oh yeah, and she's a miko, but her powers are sealed now. That's how traumatic that experience was."

Miroku just stared at him, blinking.

"Yeah," Inuyasha continued. "I just asked her how come she didn't have a seeing eye dog and she nearly lost it, and it was the same when we were leaving and a dog started barking in the distance somewhere."

"Well this is...unfortunate."

"No kidding."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Not sure exactly, but what I'm _not_ going to do is let her find out she went out on a date with a monster." He rubbed his right palm down across his face then added, "I'm thinking I'll just have to pretend I'm too busy and keep blowing off our second date until she gets discouraged and pissed off at me for being a flake. I just don't have it in me to tell her to her face I don't want to see her again, 'cause that's a bald faced lie. I tried to hint that I _owned_ a dog, during the drive back. I used that barking dog as the perfect excuse to broach the subject again, and told her I was a dog person, letting her take from that what she wanted, but it didn't work."

"What do you mean?"

"She _still_ wants to see me again, even thinking I own a white Akita. She said we could take things slowly and that maybe the kami put me in her life to help her get over her phobia."

"Well..." Miroku contemplated, finger on his chin in a thoughtful expression, "maybe that's true." He then pointed out something very logical. "And just because she's afraid of _animal_ dogs doesn't mean she's going to be afraid of _you_. You're not an animal, you're a person."

Inuyasha snorted.

"That depends on who you ask."

Miroku sighed.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah," Inuyasha relented. "But I don't want to take the chance. It's better this way."

"If you says so." Miroku didn't sound convinced. "So when are you going to start blowing her off?"

"I don't want to have her thinking _what the hell_ if I change right away, overnight, so I'll be nice to her on Tuesday but just stress how busy I am. Maybe make up some bullshit that has to do with running this place." He gestured to his mountain of paperwork. "That's not far from the truth, anyway."

"Just so long as you don't keep postponing your second date until, a month later, you actually take her out again on the next new moon. If you're going to cut ties with her, then do it, but don't lead her on."

"I've thought about that," Inuyasha admitted, "and you're right. As much as I'd love to stretch it out and manage to see her again, even just one more time, that wouldn't be fair to her."

"Well, I can't fault you for having your heart in the right place, but I still question your reasoning," Miroku said then. "However, I won't undermine your plan. In the end, I believe the kami's will shall be done."

"Meaning if this all blows up in my face that's the will of the kami?"

"Precisely."

Inuyasha sighed.

"I...can't even decide if I secretly _want_ it all to blow up in my face. So yeah, I guess we'll just see what happens."

o o o

Bright and early Tuesday morning, while Kagome was giddily looking forward to speaking with Yasha on her lunch break, she made sure not to lose track of how far she walked while on her way to the bus stop. Successfully finding said stop right where it was supposed to be, she had a seat on the bench.

"Kagome," Kikyou greeted.

Something about her voice was...off, as if she were on high alert.

"Kikyou? What's wrong?"

"I sense a youkai presence," Kikyou stated bluntly.

Kagome instantly relaxed.

"Jeez, this isn't the feudal era," she joked. "Just because this part of the city is mostly human, that doesn't mean the occasional youkai doesn't come through, I'm sure."

Condescendingly, Kikyou said, "You are correct, of course. However, I find it suspicious that I began feeling this youkai approach at the same moment I could see your approach from down the street, and now that you have stopped here, the youkai has stopped, as well. I believe you are being followed."

From his hiding place on the roof of the store in front of the bus stop, Inuyasha mentally cursed his stupidity.

He knew that other woman was a reiki user, had been able to feel it within her on day one, but her reiki was relatively weak and so he'd thought he knew, based on Miroku's abilities, how close he could get without being sensed. Whether it was wise of him or not, he had actually been keeping an eye on Kagome from a safe distance since last Thursday, ever since she'd told him the day before of how she'd nearly missed her bus stop. He'd had no plans of actually interfering with her commute, but after she'd agreed to go out on a date with him his inner youkai had already considered her 'his' and had insisted he protect her, and of course, now that he knew of her phobia and that there could never be anything between them, he couldn't just turn that part of himself off. He'd planned on continuing to just watch her from afar, not in a creepy stalkerish kind of way, but just like her secret body guard, to make sure she stayed safe from harm. Unfortunately, today he had dared to get much closer to her than before, and had stupidly let the other miko sense his presence.

What was that Miroku had said a couple of days ago about everything blowing up in his face being the will of the kami? If he wasn't careful, he was going to wind up doing the kami's job for them.

 _Self-fulfilling prophecy much?_ he mentally chastised himself before slowly and silently backing away.

Dropping down the backside of the building, where nobody saw him, he took off in the opposite direction. Kagome had made it to the bus stop, so that was all that mattered. Backtracking to where he'd parked his car, then, he headed to work to await Kagome's arrival on the bus. A part of him wished he could've stayed to hear what else was said, but considering what he _had_ heard he knew getting out of there was the right choice, even if that Kikyou woman correctly deduced that he'd heard her and fled for that reason. But having also heard what Kagome'd initially said, that put a smile on his face as he drove towards his humble little noodle shop. Perhaps Miroku was right. Kagome hadn't seemed phased by the idea of _people_ youkai being nearby, at all.

And in fact Kagome wasn't so convinced of Kikyou's hypothesis that she was personally being followed, either. Inuyasha was already out of hearing range and missed it when she replied to Kikyou's suspicions with, "Seriously?" in a dubious tone of voice.

Ignoring the obvious tone of doubt in Kagome's voice, Kikyou stretched her senses when she felt the youkai rapidly departing. Closing her eyes and concentrating, it took her just a few seconds to realize she couldn't feel it anymore.

"And now the youkai is gone. Interesting," she said in her same suspicious tone of voice.

"You keep saying _the youkai_ like he or she is some kind of beast," Kagome pointed out. "I mean, I know there _are_ beast youkai." Without thinking about it, because she'd never shared that much about herself with the older miko, Kagome absentmindedly gestured at her face. "Believe me, I know," she continued, "but especially if I was being followed, and especially if they left because they heard you _say_ you could sense them and thought I was being followed, then that tells me it was a person, not a beast."

"They are all beasts," Kikyou argued. "Especially the ones who can take human form."

If Kagome hadn't been sitting down on the bench she would've taken a few good steps backwards at that.

"Oh _hello_ , racist much?" she quipped, unwilling to play little miss nice Kagome with this woman any longer. "I was _blinded_ by a youkai animal and still don't have a problem with the _humanoid_ ones. And I seriously doubt this _person_ was actually following me, but he or she probably overheard you and figured they needed to get away before the situation escalated." Thinking about it a moment longer, she added, "Now I hope whoever it was actually does approach me later, like maybe if they'd been following 'cause they'd wanted to ask me a question or something, so that I could then have the opportunity to _apologize_ to them on your behalf."

Whatever Kikyou might've been preparing to say back, she held her tongue when the bus chose that moment to arrive.

"Morning Kagome!" the driver greeted cheerfully, earning a huge grin as she said a chipper "Good morning!" back, scanning her IC card before having a seat.

Thankfully, Kikyou went to her usual seat more towards the back of the bus, probably because she didn't want to get called out for her racist views when they were no longer alone.

 _That woman!_

Kagome had never been so angry at another person before in all her life. How, as a _miko,_ could Kikyou have such ignorant views? _Her_ miko training had included things like love and acceptance, and sure, a history lesson of when their two peoples, humans and youkai, had been enemies, but that was _history_. There was no reason to dwell on the old ways in that day and age, and Kikyou's attitude about the whole thing really made Kagome wonder, in a nervous sort of way, just what all went on at that temple Kikyou worked at, where she commuted to seven days a week.

Deciding not to worry about it after a minute, though, because she had been in a good mood and didn't want such negative thoughts spoiling what was supposed to be a happy day because it was the first time she'd get to speak with Yasha since their date, Kagome made a mental note to talk about it with her family later. If Tama Temple – if memory served, that was what Kikyou had once said it was called – was secretly teaching such hatred, then it would need to be addressed. On the other hand, it could very well be that Kikyou's duties there were mundane, such as purifying tainted objects, and her hatred was her own, perhaps taught to her by her parents.

 _And maybe something bad happened to her once_... Kagome relented after a moment, since she knew she didn't really know anything about the older woman's history.

 _But even if a humanoid youkai was cruel to her in some horrible way, that's still no justification for making such a blanket statement_.

Just like she knew she couldn't rightfully blame all dogs, or even all demonic ones, for what'd happened to _her_ , but like she'd told Yasha, she didn't _hate_ dogs, and besides, if he really owned an Akita then it looked like the kami had decided it was time for her to get over her phobia. While she'd always kind of been a cat person, she'd certainly never had anything against dogs prior to her accident, and since she _wanted_ to get over her fear, because she _wanted_ to be in a relationship with Yasha and if he had a dog then she would need to get over her fear, that, alone, she figured was a good enough first step. The other steps, they would hopefully take together.

It was with that last thought in mind, and with a huge smile on her face as a result, that she departed the bus when the driver informed her they were at her stop, all thoughts of Kikyou's prejudice out of her head for the time being.

As for Kikyou, she momentarily thought she could feel that same youki signature again, and was about to shout out a warning to Kagome, because just because the blind girl was naive and overly trusting didn't mean she didn't deserve to be warned that a monster was lurking nearby, but just as quickly as she'd thought she'd felt the youkai, it was gone, and the miko found herself second guessing herself. Then the bus' doors were closing and it was too late, as Kagome began her trek up the sidewalk while the bus drove away. Closing her eyes, Kikyou murmured a short, quiet prayer for the kami to protect Kagome from whatever devious things this youkai wanted with her.

As for Inuyasha, who'd backed farther away when he'd realized how strongly he could sense that miko's reiki and realized it was possible he was again within her sensing distance, he'd talked himself into observing as Kagome got off the bus to assess what kind of a mood she was in after what he'd overheard that other miko tell her. Sitting on top of a roof several blocks away, he watched as she got closer, and as soon as he could make out the huge grin she was sporting, he sighed in relief and doubled back to Mushin's Noodles, having made sure he didn't get close enough to the herb shop for either Hojo to sense his presence.

Later, on her lunch break, Kagome came into the noodle shop right on schedule, and he couldn't help but smile to himself at how her unbridled happiness lightened her scent. He was going to absolutely hate it as the days turned into weeks and her scent became sour with sadness and anger.

He sat with her right away, getting his third helping of ramen for the day to have something to eat while Kagome enjoyed her udon soup, which he had already made sure both Sango and Miroku knew was on the house from now on. That wouldn't change, no matter what. Hopefully, Kagome would know that his feelings for her were real, even if he was a flake with commitment issues for whom she simply couldn't wait around forever. On that day, however, he started his deception _very_ slowly, and told her that he'd tentatively like to say that their second date could be on this upcoming Saturday night, but that he wasn't 100% sure yet because his mother had told him that she might need him to drive her somewhere.

Trying to keep his lie as vague as possible, hoping Kagome wouldn't pry, which she didn't, he was just relieved she didn't currently have her ability to sense it when people were lying, because otherwise he was sure his aura would've been giving off the equivalent to a neon sign on the subject.

"Family is important," she said instead of sounding suspicious, buying his story right away. "If you're busy this Saturday because you have to take your mother somewhere then we can do it the Saturday after. That's fine."

She didn't even smell disappointed, only understanding and caring, which made him feel worse, but thanking her for her understanding nonetheless, he quickly changed the subject and they spent the rest of her lunch break chitchatting about stupid shit. Never once did she bring up being 'followed' by a youkai that morning, and he knew he had no plausible reason to bring up anything that had to do with youkai in general, so he never found out how her conversation with the other miko went after he'd left, but since she clearly wasn't bothered by the incident that was good enough for him.

The next day it was more of the same, and then on Thursday he told her with another apology that it looked like he wouldn't be able to do it this Saturday, after all. She again told him that she understood, and reiterated that the following Saturday would be fine. He was relieved she never bothered asking about Sunday night; since they were both off on Mondays that would actually make even more sense, but it seemed that fate was letting a few things work in his favor.

On Friday he tried his luck at being so 'busy' he couldn't visit with her on her lunch break. Trying to limit the number of outright lies he told her to her face, he actually went out of his way to create something he needed to do, rescheduling one of next week's food deliveries for that day, and more specifically, for the time of day that she would be there. He came out to say hi to Kagome momentarily, but she could hear the hustle and bustle, the delivery man talking with Miroku, Sango complaining to Inuyasha that there wasn't enough room to store everything being delivered, etc.

That last part was completely true, because he had bumped the delivery up and also hadn't told either Miroku or Sango that he'd done it, not wanting to put them on the spot, having to 'pretend' it was a scheduling accident in front of Kagome. Plus since it really was an inconvenience he hadn't wanted to get them mad at him, either! The looks Miroku shot him a couple of times told Inuyasha that the monk suspected he'd done it on purpose, already knowing that he was going to have to make himself too busy to deal with Kagome, but like the good friend that he was Miroku didn't accuse Inuyasha of anything...at least while Kagome was there.

Inuyasha also had the perfect solution to the problem he'd created. He wouldn't have pulled that stunt if the food was actually going to go to waste as a result. His solution? Since there wasn't enough room in their freezer for all of the new chicken and beef that'd just come in, he would take some of it home to temporarily store in his own freezer, which didn't have anything in it since he ate most of his meals in his restaurant.

Of course, that meant he had to take off, 'cause couldn't risk letting the frozen meat thaw out, right? So saying a quick and apologetic goodbye to Kagome, he grabbed the last four boxes that wouldn't fit in the restaurant's freezer and headed out the door. He came back a good hour later, expecting the fifth degree from his friends, especially Sango, but all the taijiya-turned-head chef told him was that Miroku had explained. Somehow, his friends' understanding made him feel even worse, like he actually wanted them to be mad at him because he knew he deserved it. He was an ass, and if he wasn't an ass, then he was at least a fucking coward.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Inuyasha's 'plan' seemed to be going smoothly, or at least as smoothly as could be expected.

On Saturday he wasn't even there, which Kagome brushed off because she'd already known he (supposedly) had to take his mother somewhere that day. She had expected him to be there, but then admittedly didn't know what all this thing with his mother entailed, so she let it go without being suspicious. Since she was off on Sundays and Mondays – plus Mushin's Noodles was actually closed on Mondays, anyway – she didn't expect to be with Yasha again until Tuesday, and so it wasn't until Tuesday rolled around, and Sango reluctantly informed her that Yasha had had to run out for a minute, that she began to worry.

Oh, he came back in time to apologize to her for losing track of time, but muttering something about needing to fix an error in some paperwork he then went back into the back office, and it was already time for her to head back to the herb shop so she missed her chance to really visit with him, let alone bring up anything about finalizing their date for Saturday.

Wednesday he was ready to have lunch with her, and started to until less than halfway through they got a suspiciously timed angry phone call that he _had_ to deal with, because the caller was demanding it.

Miroku would question him about that one later, and discover with disapproval that he had actually paid somebody to call in pretending to be an angry customer.

Thursday there was another delivery, this time of more noodles, which _had_ been set for that day and was actually a few hours late, since it should have arrived early that morning.

Miroku had to give it to him. It was pretty amazing what he could accomplish if he threw enough money around. He suspected Yasha had contacted the driver and bribed him to just go park somewhere for a few hours. Since it was a local delivery from a local noodle maker, it wasn't like the driver worked for a large company and had a strict schedule to keep. They had been his only delivery for that day. Inuyasha was doing his best to come up with diversions without inconveniencing anyone else, and Miroku was at least impressed that his friend and boss was trying to hard not to create collateral damage, no matter how insignificant it might've seemed.

On Friday Inuyasha wasn't there, and on Saturday, the supposed day of his and Kagome's second date, he wasn't there. Kagome couldn't stop kicking herself for not getting his phone number, and Sango hesitated when she asked her for it, claiming she didn't feel comfortable giving out her boss' number because if he'd wanted her to have it he should've given it to her himself. Which was true, and Inuyasha had had every intention of doing so at the start of their first date two weeks ago. He had been relieved he hadn't already given Kagome his number when he'd ended up making the decision to stop pursuing a relationship with her, and he'd made Sango and Miroku both promise not to give her his number if she asked.

That day was the true beginning of Kagome's broken heart, as she realized now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was blowing her off on purpose. But as stubborn as she was, she wanted to know _why_.

"If Yasha's changed his mind about us and doesn't want to see me anymore, he should at least have the balls to say so to my face," she said, turning around and heading out of Mushin's Noodles without her udon.

Sango didn't say anything as she watched her go, but if Kagome had still had the ability to sense the emotions of everyone around her, Sango's anger, directed at Inuyasha, would have lit up the room in Kagome's mind's eye.

Somebody else with the ability to sense emotions, or more specifically _scent_ them, was well aware of the taijiya's anger. From his place hiding like the coward he was, sitting perched up on the roof of his noodle shop, the scent of Kagome's sadness and anger also hit him like a ton of bricks in that moment, and not for the first time, he wondered if he was doing the right thing.

 _Too late now, ass hole_...

Of course, it wasn't too late. He could leap down from the roof right now, land in her path, swoop her up into his arms and beg her to forgive him, but he wouldn't.

He didn't deserve her forgiveness.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The following morning, Kagome was a mess. She'd already had a good cry against her mother the night before. It'd taken every ounce of acting ability she'd possessed to just wait out the duration of her lunch break and then stroll back into work as if everything were fine, so by the time she'd gotten home she'd lost it and told her mother everything. As Mrs. Higurashi checked on her daughter that morning, Kagome wasn't really any better off.

"How are you feeling?" her mother asked her quietly, as she poked her head into Kagome's bedroom.

Although she'd been wide awake for at least an hour, Kagome hadn't gotten out of bed yet.

 _It's times like these that I actually appreciate the darkness…_ she thought bitterly, before deciding she'd better answer her mother.

"Like an idiot," she said.

Hearing her mother sigh before entering the room, shutting the door behind her, Kagome sighed as well but nevertheless sat up in bed, and swinging her legs around, she scooted forward until she was sitting on the edge of the bed near the headboard, leaving room for her mother to join her.

Seeing the invitation for what it was, Mrs. Higurashi sat down on the bed beside her daughter, and wrapping her right arm around Kagome's shoulders, the young would-be miko leaned sideways against her mother's embrace.

"Oh Mama..." she sniffled. "I thought he really liked me."

This was the first time the loss of her 'third eye' had actually led to such a colossal...well, 'misunderstanding' wasn't the right word, because he had deliberately misled her, but this was the first time anyone had thought to lead her on in such a way, and because of her inability to sense his soul she had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Although she'd gotten fairly good at reading people's emotions based on the tone of voice they used, the accuracy of that ability was dependent upon people not deliberately masking their true intentions, and for some reason, call it wishful thinking, she'd stupidly never thought of the possibility that all his kindness, all his reassurances, and his seemingly nervous and insecure moments, had all been an elaborate deception.

Even now, it was hard to believe, despite all the mounting evidence to support the theory.

"I mean, if he hadn't just been leading me on from the very beginning, if he'd been sincere at the time in his desire to date me but then something had made him change his mind afterwards, why can't he just _say_ so?" she asked her mother, her sniffles quickly turning into another round of sobs. "Why can't he just say 'I'm sorry Kagome, but I don't think it's going to work out'?"

"There there..." Mrs. Higurashi cooed, rubbing her daughter's back.

A part of her wanted to drive down to Mushin's Noodles and tell that boy off for hurting her daughter like this, but another part of her, the one who'd seen the way he'd looked at Kagome, like he was already head over heels in love with her, wanted to hold on to the hope that, somehow, this really _was_ just all a misunderstanding.

"Perhaps the next time you're there you should ask _him_ that," she said, letting a touch of irritation show in her voice. If Yasha _was_ just jerking her daughter around then there would be _hell_ to pay.

At the suggestion, Kagome snorted. Sitting upright a bit and wiping the tear marks from her face, she said, "If I can. He's been actively avoided me, or something, at least." She sniffled again. "I mean, yesterday and the day before he wasn't even _there_ ," she whined.

Suddenly, thought, it was as if a light bulb went off.

"But I bet he'd be there _today_ ," she said, "'cause I never go on Sundays so he wouldn't even be expecting me." Thinking of something else, she added, "And unless she's also just been a really good actress all this time, Sango feels sorry for me, for the way he's been blowing me off."

In fact, yesterday, she had asked the head chef point blank of Yasha really _was_ there and just hiding in the office, telling them to tell her he wasn't there, and the way Sango had sworn to her that he wasn't in the premises had really made it sound as if she would have gladly snitched on him if he _had_ been. She had sounded none too pleased with her boss' disappearing act.

"I'm going to take a chance and call the shop," Kagome said then, mind made up on her newly formed plan of action.

For all she knew, Yasha was never there on Sundays, and she definitely didn't want to waste her time heading down there if it turned out there wasn't even a chance of speaking with him. Though, honestly, she doubted he wouldn't be there since for the last two years it'd seemed as if he basically lived there, and with the shop closed on Mondays there were also probably procedures for shutting it down for a day that he'd want to supervise, not to mention things like payroll were generally taken care of on Sundays. Yes, it seemed likely that he'd be there, and Kagome seriously doubted that Sango would rat her out and warn him she was coming.

Deciding it was worth the risk, she took the chance and called Mushin's Noodles, grabbing her cell phone off her nightstand and dialing the operator in order to be connected. She figured from what she'd heard over the last two years that either Sango or Miroku would most likely answer the phone, and her guess was proven correct a short moment later when Sango answered. Kagome was glad it was Sango, although she would've taken the same chance with Miroku.

Knowing that she might not have been able to speak freely, depending on if Yasha were eating in the main room at the moment or not, after Sango's greeting of "Moshi moshi, Mushin's Noodles," Kagome responded with, "Sango, it's Kagome, and before you say anything, I just gotta say, I know Yasha's been avoiding me, and I deserve to be able to confront him about that..."

"Absolutely," Sango interjected then, the former exterminator definitely wanting to let Kagome know she was on her side.

Her tone of voice was completely off, light and happy as if Kagome had asked if she could phone in her meal to go or something, but the former miko was quick on the uptake, and knew that Sango was just keeping up appearances.

"I take it he's there right now, then?" she asked.

"Uh-huh!" Sango answered, again in her happy 'customer service' tone of voice.

Fortunately for Kagome, there were some chattering customers in there at the moment, otherwise, if the noodle shop had been completely quiet, Inuyasha would've probably been able to hear her on the other end of the line. Even if he wouldn't have been able to make out what she was saying behind the closed door of the office, he would have still recognized the sound of her voice and would've probably come rushing out to assess from Sango why she was calling.

Instead, as the slayer-turned-chef eyed the office door, it remained closed, which was unsurprising since ordinarily Sundays were when Inuyasha took inventory (already done) and crunched numbers, including payroll for her and Miroku, and knowing that unless something tipped him off he should stay in the office taking care of the business end of his business, Sango had used the first couple of seconds of Kagome's opening speech to decide how best to handle this situation, deciding to pretend she was a customer so that nobody else suspected a thing, especially those with demonic hearing.

Honestly, if Kagome was planning on coming down on the one day Inuyasha definitely did not expect to see her, and confront him on his bullshit, Sango was all for it. Not because she thought Inuyasha deserved to be put in his place – well okay, yes she did – but _also_ because she actually hoped he'd have the balls to just tell Kagome the _truth_. Not for the first time, Sango wondered why _she_ didn't just tell Kagome the truth, promise or no.

Unaware of Sango's exact thoughts on the subject, Kagome nevertheless correctly deduced that the other woman was on her side, apparently sworn to secrecy assuming she knew all the details of _why_ Yasha was acting the way he was, but on her side nonetheless.

"If I took the next bus down, do you think he'd still be there?" Kagome asked Sango next.

"Oh that wouldn't be a problem, we're open until 9pm," Sango answered, still speaking in code.

"So you mean Yasha's there until close on Sundays?"

"Yes, that's right."

It still just sounded like Sango was just answering a random customer's random questions, and Kagome had to give her credit where credit was due. While she instantly recognized the fake happy 'customer service' nature of her voice, it sounded like _legit_ fake happy customer service. Miroku and/or Yasha should definitely not suspect who the former taijiya was _actually_ talking to, and Kagome was impressed, but also a little nervous. Turned out, Sango was one hell of an actress, after all, but she just had to pray that the chef was being real with her and had never used her acting skills against her.

She also wanted to make sure she could trust Sango to keep her arrival a secret, and figuring she'd better get her off the phone as soon as possible, before anyone did begin to wonder, since a simple customer call shouldn't take very long, she said, "Okay, then I'm gonna head down there to speak to him. _Please_ don't let him know I'm coming."

"Uh-huh."

It was enthusiastic in tone, but even so, Kagome didn't like that answer's general lack of commitment.

"Can I get your word that you won't tell him I'm coming?"

"Yes, absolutely," Sango said then, still in the same tone but with an air of finality that told Kagome she really meant it, and that was good enough for her.

"Okay, thank you."

"Oh you're welcome! Have a wonderful day."

That said, Sango hung up, obviously having gotten the idea that Kagome had nothing else to ask her over the phone, which was just fine with the miko who was already jumping up out of bed and rushing towards her closet. Her mother hung her laundry in order of color for her, so she could typically dress herself, but in that moment, since her mother was still in her room, she turned to face the bed and held up the blouse and skirt she'd just grabbed.

"White and green, right?" she asked her mom, gesturing to the shirt and skirt respectively.

"Yes," Mrs. Higurashi answered reassuringly. "Would you like me to drive you?"

"That's okay," Kagome said.

Although she appreciated the offer, her mother had responsibilities at their shrine on Sundays, and she couldn't just let the elder Higurashi miko be negligent in her duties for her sake. _Her_ responsibilities had been reduced to just assisting her grandfather so that she wouldn't feel useless, but Kagome knew the truth was they didn't really need her there, so it was okay for _her_ to leave, and she was perfectly capable of taking the bus.

Fortunately, it was already a little later in the day than when she went to work Tuesday through Saturday, so she didn't run into Kikyou at the bus stop. If it hadn't already been too late to make her regular bus time she probably would have deliberately waited, because she would _not_ have wanted to run into the other miko and need to come up with a reason for why she was heading into town on a Sunday.

Of course, since as far as she knew Kikyou did not have the ability to sense the emotions and honesty or deceit of others – she surely would have bragged about it if she could – Kagome knew she could've just made something up, but even so it was definitely much easier to just not have to deal with it in the first place. She'd already been deceptive the last few days by not letting on that anything was amiss, concealing her growing worry from Kikyou when Yasha had started acting strangely because she had not wanted to risk listening to some version of _I told you so_ from the other woman, especially when at that time her fears had not yet been confirmed in her mind.

Fortunately, Kikyou had never actually asked how her date had gone, or how things were going with her and Yasha – she didn't even know his name, that was how little Kagome had discussed it with her – and Kagome planned on keeping it that way. If this confrontation ultimately ended with Yasha either unable or unwilling to explain himself, or just admit that he was no longer interested in her, then _she_ would break up with _him_ because she was done being jerked around.

Fortunately also, despite running all of the various things she planned on saying to him over and over again in her head, enough of her head was still in the game so that she didn't walk right past her bus stop. The bus driver turned out to be one of the regulars, who was mildly surprised but also delighted to see her, and a quick and honest "Just need to take care of something that didn't get done yesterday," was sufficient enough answer when he conversationally asked her what had brought her out today.

Exiting the bus at Shikon Plaza, Kagome took a few deep and steady breaths to strengthen her resolve, but she was in no danger of chickening out as she began her trek down the sidewalk. Fortunately, since Mushin's Noodles was located farther down from Hojo's Holistic Healing, on the other side of the herb shop in relation to the bus stop, she didn't have to worry about not knowing exactly where the noodle shop was located and perhaps needing to pass it and find her work first, in order to keep her bearings. Doing so could have easily tipped Yasha off, if he'd just happened to spot her walking down the street through the window, so she was definitely grateful that wasn't the case. She didn't give a rat's ass if either Hojo spotted her as she passed her work, though she knew it was unlikely they would since that shop didn't have many large windows or a glass door like the noodle place did.

Finding the rock that marked the narrow footpath that led away from the main sidewalk and up to Hojo's herb shop, Kagome took a quick moment to steady her fluttering heart once again, but then continued onward, knowing exactly how much farther down the street the noodle shop was located.

Entering said shop only a few short minutes later, Sango spotted her first since she just happened to be at the front counter serving someone their food, and quickly gestured to Miroku for him to assist Kagome before she said anything loud enough to inadvertently inform Inuyasha of her presence. She had already warned Miroku, via a written note, that Kagome was coming, so her husband was her partner in crime in this. Nodding his understanding, Miroku immediately approached Kagome, the twenty-five-year-old still lingering in the doorway of the full and busy – and loud – noodle shop. Yasha had told her before that they had their occasional rush times, and that her lunch break during the week was just a little earlier than the standard lunch rush, and apparently he hadn't been kidding!

She gasped when someone grabbed her but immediately relaxed when Miroku whispered, "It's Miroku, sorry for startling you. Let me guide you 'cause this place is crazy right now, and besides, I'm sure you'd rather speak to him one on one in the office," in her ear.

She murmured a quiet "Yes please, and thank you," in return that, over the hustle bustle of the lunch rush, Miroku was pretty sure their boss hadn't heard.

There was a lot of "Excuse me" and "Pardon me" after that, but it was all Miroku, as he guided Kagome forward by walking backward himself, glancing over his shoulder while he held both of her hands in his, leading her forward, her red and white cane folded up and in her skirt pocket. Reaching the closed door that said **Employees Only** he opened it without knocking, but just enough to poke his head in.

"Hey Yash, you have a sec?" he asked, and Inuyasha looked up from his paperwork with a nonchalant "Yeah what's up?" before his eyes widened as Kagome's scent flooded the room.

"In you go..." Miroku said then, to Kagome, as he almost practically shoved her into the office, closing the door behind her. Kagome was glad for it thought, and looking in the general direction of where Yasha's voice had come from, she smirked triumphantly.

"So glad I could catch you when you had a sec," she began sarcastically, and Inuyasha gulped.

This was what he'd been hoping for, right? Hurt and anger were both pouring off of her in waves, along with a touch of fear, but so were bravery and determination. She smelled like _he_ did whenever he marched, head held high, into some snooty establishment that would look down on him for his demonic heritage. Thankfully, said establishment being full of humans meant that the mix of fear, anger and determination coming off of him was his little secret, but knowing Kagome's secret in that moment only made _his_ scent reek of guilt and remorse.

"Hey...Kagome..." He cleared his throat. Time to do this right, so that they could end it now instead of stringing her along any further. "Listen, sorry about yesterday, but well...just a bunch of things came up, and then I didn't-"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" she interrupted, unaware of the way his ears lowered to his head. "If you don't want to be in a relationship with a blind girl, just have the balls to _say_ so."

His own eyes widened in alarm at that.

"It has _nothing_ to do with your blindness!" he insisted vehemently, while simultaneously confirming, in her mind, that he didn't want to be in a relationship with her. Just, apparently, for a different reason.

"Then what is it?" she asked, practically whining, though she was bound and determined not to cry in front of him. "Is it the dog thing? Is that it? Because you definitely seemed bummed out when you told me you actually have a white Akita, but I _told you_ I was willing to work with that! I would _never_ make you choose between me or the dog. I understand if he's family to you and I was hoping that maybe you could actually help me with my phobia, so if you thought that ultimately I was going to end up insisting that in order for us to be together you'd have to lose the dog you're _wrong_ , I would _never_ do that."

"No no...no it, that's not...that's not it...I..." He wasn't sure what to say, or if he should just confess everything here and now, and he was actually leaning in that direction when Kagome spoke back up again.

"Do you _want_ to go on our second date?" she asked him point blank.

"Well sure, I mean I _want_ to, but I don't...I mean that is...well things have just been so crazy lately..."

He was rambling, he knew, but it turned out he was just too much of a coward to just come on out and say it. Like he'd told both Sango and Miroku before, he'd rather have Kagome think he was an asshole, and hate him for that reason, than think he was a _monster_ and actually _fear_ him.

Kagome, meanwhile, tuned out halfway through Yasha's rambling non-answer. It was seriously starting to feel like he was just trying to brush her off without straight up breaking it off with her in order to supposedly avoid hurting her feelings. It almost felt like he was actually _trying_ to make her break up with _him._ That would make sense, except for everything he'd said during their first date. If he wasn't interested in a relationship with her, why _tell_ her that he _was?_ Why ask her out in the first place, tell her he'd wanted to for _months_ and insist over and over again, including just a minute ago, that her blindness didn't bother him?!

"...so I'll have to check my day planner, but..."

She couldn't take it anymore. Suddenly, she snapped. Mentally, anyway.

 _Damn it, I wish I knew what he was really feeling!_ Kagome screamed inside her head, even as she tried to maintain her outward composure.

In that moment, she wanted that particular ability back more strongly than she'd ever even wanted her sight back. She had accepted the reality of her blindness pretty quickly, and there was no point in wishing for something you couldn't change, but her powers, on the other hand, were simply locked away within her, supposedly by her own unconscious doing.

 _I want that power back, damn it!_

Suddenly, Kagome could almost feel it, like something just _broke_ inside her mind, but in a good way, like a wall crumbling down, and then it all came rushing in, and at such an overwhelming rate she couldn't help but to gasp and stumble. It was like being in total darkness and then somebody turning on all these bright lights, except only inside her head because through her eyes it was all still total darkness. But suddenly she could _feel_ again, and her sudden empathic awareness of the man standing before her, and the nearly unbelievable amount of _love_ he was feeling for her, had nearly been too much to process.

Then suddenly the feeling she was getting from him was extreme worry, and she belatedly realized that he had just seen her gasp and stumble. In fact, it took her a minute to realize that his arms were actually around her waist, steadying her on her feet.

"Are you okay?!" he asked her then, his emotions as frantic as the tone of his voice.

"I'm okay," she replied. "Just dizzy."

That was true, even if it wasn't the whole truth, since the experience had definitely made her dizzy for a second.

Unbeknownst to Kagome, her incomplete truth passed her companion's built-in lie detector, as her scent told him she was being honest, even though he could also tell she wasn't telling him everything. But without any other information to go own, and with the lack of worry in her scent, he assumed she knew what was wrong and just didn't want to worry _him_ , like maybe she got lightheaded if her blood sugar got too low or something. When was the last time she'd eaten?

Still, "Maybe I should take you to a doctor," he offered, just in case.

The genuine worry, concern and _love_ he felt for her was such a shock that it nearly had her stumbling a second time. He felt almost possessively concerned for her, as if his very being centered around _her_ well-being.

 _Then why in all the hells has he been blowing me off?!_

At first, she'd thought that maybe he was just trying to spare her feelings, because maybe he wasn't a _total_ asshole, but he nevertheless didn't really care about her, and therefore instead of telling her to her face that he didn't want to see her anymore he was just being flaky in the hope that she would eventually get the hint and go away. It'd very nearly worked, too, so she was definitely grateful to the kami for restoring her sixth sense right when they did. Now that she knew he was actually head over heels in love with her, she had no intention of telling him it was over between them. She wanted to find out what his deal was and, hopefully, figure out a way to fix it so that they could be together, after all.

For a split second, she contemplated keeping her newly awakened power a secret from him, questioning him in a covert way to hopefully get at the truth with him none the wiser, but while she probably would have were it not for the strong feeling of love she was getting from him, because of that feeling she just didn't have the heart to deceive him, regardless of the fact that he was obviously deceiving her, in concealing his true feelings. What she wanted to know was _why_ , and she would find out. The fact that he loved her told her that whatever his issue was, whatever his reason for doing the whole brushing her off thing so that she'd get the hint and leave him alone, not _liking_ her definitely wasn't it.

Sometimes, the only way to get the truth out of someone was to strap them to a lie detector, and with her empathic abilities restored she was basically a human lie detector test. So instead of trying to trick him, asking him questions on the sly to assess his answers without him being aware of what she was doing, she decided in that moment that a more honest and direct approach would be better. Just because he wasn't being honest with _her_ was no reason for her to lower herself to his level.

Besides, he _loved_ her! She wasn't ready to walk away from that because, quite frankly, she loved him, too.

All his bullshit wouldn't have broken her heart if she didn't, and if his explanation was good enough, she was fully prepared to forgive him.

"Why are you doing this to me..." she asked him then, "...when you love me?"

He instantly felt afraid at her question, but afraid of what? Afraid of her knowing that he loved her? That didn't make any sense!

"I-I...I don't know what you're talking about, and I haven't _done_ any-"

"Enough!" she interrupted, hopefully quietly enough for the diners in the other room to not be wondering what the hell was going on in there.

A quick stretching of her senses confirmed that for her, as everyone in the restaurant seemed preoccupied by their own thoughts, nobody curiously focusing in on the restaurant's back office door. Good.

Quickly then, before Yasha could say anything else, she continued with her big reveal.

"Guess what, Yasha," she laughed, her tone a little bitter, "I just got my ability to read people back."

She could feel his instant panic at that revelation, but didn't care.

"I guess I should thank you for all the hell you've put me through this last week, since it ultimately made me want to know what you were _really_ feeling badly enough to force whatever scared little part of my mind was on lockdown to open itself back up again," she said. "I can't sense Miroku-sama's reiki, so that part of my abilities apparently hasn't returned yet, but I got the most important part back as far as I'm concerned."

She paused there, unsure why she sensed a tiny flare of relief in him just then, but brushing it off after a second, she knew she couldn't afford to let herself get distracted in what was very literally the moment of truth.

"So I know you love me," she stated matter-of-factly. "It came through loud and clear when I stumbled. In fact, that was the first sensation to touch that part of my mind when the dam broke, which after three years of inactivity was actually _why_ I stumbled in the first place. Your emotions towards me were overwhelming."

She picked up on a growing pang of guilt from him at that revelation, and was just about to wave it off because she didn't want to make him feel guilty, or at least, not about his emotions overwhelming her simply because she was out of practice with sensing emotions, but before she could say anything else on the matter she suddenly heard what sounded distinctly like a dog's whimper. It was quiet, but unmistakable, and the fact that it came from within the enclosed office space the two of them were occupying was enough to almost completely freak her out.

Gasping again, she instantly lost her train of thought as her mind flipped over into fight or flight mode, and at Yasha's own sudden wave of renewed fear mixed with much stronger guilt, she tried to calm herself the best she could, but it was hard when she was on the verge of a full blown anxiety attack and couldn't even see the source of her fear.

"I-is your dog in h-here?" she asked, trying and failing to steady her breathing.

Why would he have brought his dog to work with him, though, _knowing_ she was afraid of dogs? Could he really be so cruel? But no...he loved her; his very being, even in that moment, seemed almost unnaturally fixated on her well-being, like he couldn't bear the thought of any harm befalling her.

And then suddenly, he seemed so sad, heartbroken even, and she didn't understand it. Not one bit. Unless maybe...his Akita was his own service animal, and so it was usually always with him and she'd just somehow never known it? That could explain it, as well as his initial reaction to learning she feared dogs, and especially that particular breed the most. But just when she was about to ask him if that was the reason for all of this, he spoke up first.

"I...don't have a dog," he murmured quietly, almost so quietly that she didn't even hear him.

"What...?" she asked then, completely confused. Forgetting about the whimper she'd just heard, all she was thinking about was the conversation they'd had during the drive home after dinner when she demanded, "Well then what in all the hells was all that bullshit about having a white Akita for?!"

What the fuck kind of sick, twisted game was he playing, to take what he'd learned was her greatest fear and then turn it against her? Had he just claimed to own a dog, and that specific breed no less – and color! – in the hope of discouraging her from wanting to further pursue their relationship?! Had he only started acting flaky and blowing her off because she'd told him she was willing to make things work with him despite his dog, so it'd been like Plan B? Was _that_ it?

But as quickly as that anger came, it dissipated, as the absolute sorrow he was suddenly now feeling brushed up against her psyche. Whatever he'd done, and for whatever reason, it seemed to be killing him inside, and reminding herself again that he definitely really loved her, almost tragically so, as he apparently thought they _couldn't_ be together even though he _wanted_ them to be, Kagome just didn't have it in her to stay angry with him.

"Just tell me what's going on," she said then. "You know I know you love me, and guess what? It's not one-sided!" she confessed. "And depending on whatever it was that you _thought_ was an important enough reason to screw with my head and heart, I may still forgive you." She paused a moment then added, "Ya know, so long as you're not secretly a serial killer or something."

He snorted at that, and the sound strangely broke her heart a little bit more, as well as the next words he uttered.

"I've never hurt anyone, and I'd _never_ hurt _you_ , but that doesn't mean I'm not a monster."

"But you _have_ hurt me," she replied softly, her sightless eyes tearing up as her words renewed the heartache he was feeling.

"It's for the best," he said after a painful moment of silence. "I had told myself that I would rather...would rather you hated me than...feared me."

"Feared _you_?" she asked, confused again. But then suddenly, an uncomfortable feeling growing in the pit of her stomach did indeed make her feel afraid. Afraid they had both been suffering the results of a horrible misunderstanding, and that it was all her fault. And here she'd prided herself on not being racist, but she'd just automatically assumed Yasha was human, hadn't she?

Of course, he had no way of knowing what specific direction her thoughts had taken, only that she was starting to smell afraid.

She approached him then, hand outstretched in an effort to feel for him.

"Yasha, please, just tell me the tru-"

He cut her off with a growl, low and deep. A warning to stay back. Having already figured his secret was out, it was best to get his point across. She gasped and stumbled backwards, the scent of fear coming off of her skyrocketing, and he barely managed to avoid reaching out to catch her. He would have, if she would have fallen otherwise, but she'd managed to catch herself and stay on her feet, her flailing hand finding purchase on the back of one of the two office chairs that sat facing his desk.

"See?" he said then, mentally cringing at his poor word choice although he nevertheless plowed forward. "We can't be together, no matter how much I love you. Just...just enjoy your free udon on your lunch breaks, and I'll make sure I'm never here."

With that said, he rushed out of the room before she could reply.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

In too much shock to say anything, Kagome heard it as Yasha move swiftly across the room, opening and closing the door, and then the feel of him began to fade away as he exited the restaurant, until she was left with the undefined white noise of the emotions of the various diners in the other room, plus, presumably, Sango and Miroku. They were all just at the edge of her awareness, because her range wasn't very far, which was actually a blessing because otherwise it'd be more of a curse than a gift.

Still in shock after everything that'd just happened, she maneuvered herself around the chair she'd grabbed hold of in her brief moment of panic and flopped her butt down in the seat, still trying to process it all. Then, before she could become fully absorbed in her own thoughts, the office door opened and closed again, along with the sound and feel of someone now being in the room with her; she felt overwhelming worry and concern from that person, and knew it had to be either Sango or Miroku.

Turning to face the door, she sniffled, and was just about to say something when Sango beat her to it.

"Are you all right, Kagome?"

She lost it then.

"Oh Sango!" she cried, and instantly, the older woman's arms were around her.

The slayer-turned-chef had no idea what all had been said between Kagome and Inuyasha but it was obvious Inuyasha had been inconsolable when he'd suddenly stormed through the tiny restaurant and out the front door without so much as a glance in her and Miroku's direction. Just one look to her husband had had Miroku nodding in agreement; he could handle the front of the house by himself for a minute, she was needed elsewhere.

"Kagome, what happened?" Sango asked her quietly and tenderly.

Without answering her directly, Kagome in turn asked, "Sango is Yasha...Yahsa's a youkai, isn't he?"

Sango felt surprised but also nervous at the question, which was all the confirmation she needed, and laughing bitterly, Kagome continued.

"I regained my ability to sense a person's soul. I'm empathic again, and he loves me Sango, he _loves_ me. So I asked him why, and he said it was better if I hated him than feared him. Oh Sango!" She threw her arms around the other woman. "I could never fear _him!_ Why didn't I think to explain myself better?! This is all my fault!"

"I don't understand," Sango said then.

"I don't fear _humanoid_ youkai," Kagome explained then. "I mean, why _would_ I? I was attacked by an inugami! They're just brainless monsters!" Pausing to sniffle loudly, she wiped her nose on the back of her hand and added, "Yasha called _himself_ a monster. And he growled at me. He growled! And I was _afraid!"_ Completely losing it, she hugged Sango tightly and started balling against the other girl's shoulder. "It was just...it was just instinct, but I didn't mean it!" she mumbled into Sango's work shirt, and the former taijiya could think of nothing else to do but pat Kagome on the back as that part of her shirt got wet.

"His full given name is actually Inuyasha," she told Kagome quietly after a moment, hesitating when she felt the younger girl stiffen in her embrace, but Kagome didn't say anything else so she continued. "He's actually a hanyou, an...an inu-hanyou, and his particular breed is most closely related to the Akita and...and he has white hair. He was going to tell you on your date, but when he found out how you'd been blinded, and that you were afraid of dogs as a result, he just...he just automatically assumed that there was no way you two could be together, and he'd decided he didn't want you to know what his was for fear of you becoming afraid of him. I told him that he should just tell you anyway, that even if you _wouldn't_ be able to date him because your phobia wouldn't let you, you still deserved to know the truth as far as why he was breaking it off, but he was just so afraid of losing what you two already had, that friendship you'd gained over the last two years. He'd foolishly thought that if he just let things fizzle out between you two romantically that you'd at least still come into the shop on your lunch break and he could at least still see you as a friend, as opposed to you never coming here ever again if you were terrified of him. He'd figured you'd be mad at him for a while but would eventually let it go, so he'd thought it was the lesser of two evils."

"It's all my fault," Kagome murmured again at Sango's explanation. "When I told him I was afraid of dogs, and how that inugami attacked me, I should have gone out of my way to specify, it's only _animals_ I have a problem with. Humanoid youkai aren't _animals_. Even if they have an animal form! They have human _brains_ , so it doesn't count! It's the unpredictable, animalistic nature of the less intelligent beasts I fear. And I _know_ it's irrational to fear all dogs because of my attack. Especially mortal dogs. Inugami are inherently very vicious, true, but normal house dogs aren't, unless they've been conditioned that way. Logically I _know_ that, but I have PTSD, and I just...I just can't help it. His growl. It just...well it spooked me, and now he thinks I really _do_ fear him, but I _don't!"_

She started crying more heavily again, but Sango pulled Kagome away, shaking her a little. It was time for tough love, because she did love the younger girl, as a best friend, as a sister even, and she loved Inuyasha too, as a friend, and _wanted_ to see them have their happily ever after.

"Kagome, calm down, it's all going to be okay."

The miko sniffled again.

"How...?"

"Well, because I know you, and I know you can be just as stubborn as Yasha, if not more so. When you put your mind to it at least."

She'd overheard enough of her and Inuyasha's casual conversations over the last two years to know quite a good deal about the former miko's personality, and this blubbering girl sitting before her wasn't the Kagome she knew.

"He needs to calm down, but then he needs to be _sat_ down and confronted. Let me ask you this, Kagome," Sango said, her tone of voice deathly serious. " _Are_ you okay with the fact that he's an inu-hanyou?"

"Of course!" Kagome blurted right away, but then pausing a moment, what Sango was saying finally fully sank in. It wasn't her _dating_ a hanyou that Kagome focused in on, though.

"Oh kami...he's a hanyou..." Before Sango could misunderstand and misjudge, Kagome finished with, "...it all makes so much _sense_ now."

And it did.

His insecurities, him telling her that he'd _never_ been on a date before and that nobody considered him a catch, his admitted hesitation before asking her out, him not being bothered by her blindness...

How could he turn around and judge her when the world judged _him?_ And, she had to acknowledge, a part of him had probably liked having a companion who _couldn't_ judge him right off based on his appearance. She couldn't really blame him for keeping that detail from her when they'd just been casual friends, and he'd probably had every intention of telling her once they became romantically involved, but then she'd gone and dropped the bombshell of all bombshells and shattered his world.

She was slightly confused about one thing, but thought she knew the answer, when she asked Sango, "Our first date, that Saturday night...he was human that night, wasn't he?"

He had to have been. There was no way he could have fooled her mother and brother even if he'd been wearing a black wig.

"Yes," Sango confirmed. "That Saturday night had been his human night." Perhaps it wasn't her place to reveal this next detail, but she didn't much care at the moment. "His youki is very strong, and he only turns human one night a month, on the new moon. The rest of the month he's his hanyou self, night and day."

Even though she couldn't access her reiki at the moment, she still remembered her lessons from back when she'd received her miko training, and Kagome knew that for a hanyou to only turn human one night a month, he had to have been _hella_ strong. Then she gasped, as the obvious stared her right in the face.

"Toga Taisho...his father is Toga Taisho."

Sango actually felt surprised and confused.

"How'd you know that?"

"Because..." Kagome laughed bitterly. "Our reservations for dinner were under his name, Mr. _Taisho_ , and he'd told me the whole story, how he was an illegitimate son, a bastard son from an affair. I hadn't cared. I'm not a stickler for family lineage and honor and all that like my grandfather is. He might not've approved of me dating an illegitimate son, but I wasn't going to tell Jii-chan that part. But that was when I thought he was one of the _human_ Taisho. There's only one youkai Taisho, that I know of, who is indeed a silver inu. It was part of my social studies as a miko. We were required to learn about the youkai royals. Yasha..." Pausing, she corrected herself. "Inuyasha's not just rich, he's a prince."

"In blood only," Sango said. "He's got no birthright, no claim."

Kagome nodded.

"He's not an heir. He told me that. But I don't care about that stuff, anyway. It's just kinda crazy to realize who he actually is. Nothing in my lesson book talked about Taisho-sama siring a hanyou, but _that's_ not surprising."

"Well and it wasn't that long ago," Sango said then. "If it would've been centuries ago, I'm sure it would've made the history books by now, but while Inuyasha will probably age like a youkai and live for several centuries, he's only thirty-five. He's got a baby face though, looks closer to twenty."

The reminder of Inuyasha's lifespan caused a slight pang of sadness in Kagome's heart, but not from the idea that he wouldn't grow old with her. She'd never be so selfish. Instead, she regretted her own lifespan, and that he'd be forced to watch _her_ grow old and die while he stayed young, forcing him to be alone once again after she was gone. But of course, she knew she was getting way ahead of herself. She had to find him for another sit down conversation and get him to actual believe that she still wanted to be with him before she could rightfully start planning on spending the next few decades with him, and he'd just told her that he would make sure to never be there during her lunch breaks ever again, under the misguided assumption that she was now terrified of him. How was she supposed to tell him that wasn't true if she'd never see him again?

Of course, the obvious solution was to just tell Sango to tell him for her, since she and Miroku would obviously still be seeing Inuyasha on a near daily basis. They could tell him that she knew he was an inu-hanyou now, and that she was okay with it, didn't fear him, and still wanted to be in a relationship with him. Knowing that he really did love her, then surely he'd come around after hearing that, right? She was just about to discuss that plan of action with Sango, but then suddenly, she got an even _better_ idea.

"Sango, do...do you think either you or Miorku-sama could give me a ride to Yasha's apartment tomorrow? He should be home, right? Since you guys are closed on Mondays?"

Kagome couldn't see Sango's mischievous smirk as it formed, but she could definitely sense the woman's amusement.

"Oh, he'll be home all right. Especially since, if I know him at all, and I do, he'll be sulking after what happened today."

Asking Kagome to give her a moment, jokingly saying she'd better go check on her husband and make sure he hadn't set the kitchen on fire yet, which earned the desired laugh from Kagome, Sango excused herself and told Kagome she'd be back in just a minute. True to her word, Sango returned a short time later, and told Kagome that while she actually couldn't take her to Inuyasha's apartment because she'd promised her brother Kohaku she'd help him out on an extermination job he was nervous to do on his own, Miroku hadn't been planning on going along since a reiki user wasn't required and so he was definitely available, and willing, to take her.

"I really appreciate it."

"So will Inuyasha, once you yank his head out of his ass," Sango laughed. "But don't be surprised, or discouraged, if he's closed off at first."

Nodding her understanding, Kagome and Sango worked out the details, and then Kagome left, heading down the street to the bus stop.

o o o

"I'm home," Kagome called out as she made her way past the genkan after sliding off her shoes.

"Welcome home, dear," Mrs. Higurashi greeted as she came out from the kitchen dressed in her miko garb, the elder Higurashi woman having decided to get a head start on dinner preparations while there were no guests at the shrine requiring her blessing. She'd just been chopping vegetables for later.

Unable to miss the new level of determination that seemed to be radiating from her daughter, Atsuko asked her, "Were you able to get everything sorted out?"

Surprisingly, Kagome deflated a little bit at the question.

"Oh Mama..." she said, and her mother recognized _that_ tone of voice all too well.

Coming up to her daughter, then, Atsuko directed Kagome to have a seat with her in the living room. Kagome's brother and grandfather were both in the main shrine building and wouldn't come into the house unless it was to fetch Atsuko because a miko was required for something, but Mrs. Higurashi doubted they'd be interrupted.

"What about dinner?" Kagome asked her mother absentmindedly when the elder Higurashi woman had a seat beside her.

"Nothing's cooking yet and the meat is still in the fridge," she said. "The chopped vegetables can sit on the counter all evening for all I care. My baby girl is more important."

Kagome smiled a little at that, but it looked strained.

"So are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?" her mother continued when the former miko continued to just sit there quietly.

"Oh Mama..." Kagome said again, interrupting herself with a shaky breath as she tried not to start crying again. She was afraid to tell her mother, afraid of what the older woman's reaction would be, which ironically had her sympathizing with Yasha's... _Inuyasha's_...situation even more. Still, she knew she couldn't... _shouldn't_ keep something like this a secret.

Especially if there was the slightest possibility of her still having a relationship with him, if he'd have her.

"I found out why Yasha broke my heart," she began then. Her mother didn't even know she'd regained her ability to sense other people's souls yet, but Kagome was extremely grateful she had, not just because it had been the catalyst for finding out this next part, but also because she'd _really_ know how her mother felt about the whole thing. "It's because I already broke _his_ ," she confessed, before lowering her head and wiping at her eyes from underneath the sunglasses she hadn't taken off yet.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Atsuko murmured quietly.

Turning her head to face her mother, then, Kagome closed her sightless eyes and opened her _mind's_ eye to the emotions of the woman sitting next to her.

"I found out he's not fully human," she began, registering the shock that initially washed through her mother. The why was understandable, considering she'd met the man on his human night and, as far as her reiki had been able to determine, he was indeed fully human. "He's actually a hanyou," Kagome continued, letting her mother absorb that bit of information next. More shock, followed by understanding dawning, because while it wasn't _common_ knowledge, those in the reiki community were indeed aware of the fact that hanyou have times of weakness where they lose their powers and seem completely human to all but the strongest of reiki users, who even then would have to go _digging_ for that tiny speck of hibernating youki.

After the surprise wore off, Mrs. Higurashi's understanding, love and acceptance shown through, and Kagome unconsciously exhaled in relief.

"Kagome, dear, surely you know that we would not object to you-"

"It never even got that far," Kagome interrupted. She just needed to explain the whole thing, especially now that she knew her mother wouldn't reject him. "He's an _inu-_ hanyou, and a white Akita on top of that."

Her mother was surprised again, and then she murmured a quiet, "Oh, I see..."

"Yeah, and _before_ I knew that, I told him the whole story of what happened, on our date, and how I'm scared to death of dogs now, _especially_ white Akita!" She collapsed into tears at that, Mrs. Higurashi automatically wrapping her arms around her daughter as Kagome cried against her shoulder. "He was so hurt... He thought I would be afraid of _him_..."

The way she phrased it implied, in her mother's mind, that she and Yasha had at least had an open conversation on the subject.

"I'm sure he forgives you," Atsuko said, but Kagome shook her head.

"He left the room right after more or less revealing to me what he was, so we didn't get to talk about it."

"More or less?"

"He growled at me, to make a point, I guess. And I _was_ afraid, I mean, just at first! 'Cause it's like people who are afraid of thunder, even though you know the lightning can't hurt you, so long as you're not out in the storm at least. So yeah, I was startled by the growl, 'cause it was spooky sounding, and then that's when he left, so now he totally _does_ think that I'm afraid of him, like...like I now understand what kind of a _monster_ he really is, or something."

Tenderly, cautiously, while gently rubbing her daughter's back as Kagome leaned against her side, Atsuko questioned, "So...you're _not_ actually afraid of him, right? Even though he's half inu-youkai?"

Aghast, Kagome pulled out of her mother's embrace.

"Of course not! He's a _person_ , not an animal." To Kagome, that difference was obvious. "I mean, I was _surprised_ , and I can't honestly say how I would've reacted if I'd still had some sight and seen him before getting to know him, but now that I _do_ know him? And this might sound harsh, but since I _can't_ see him, then I can put his appearance out of my mind. I mean the poor guy's been judged his whole life based on his appearance, and he probably gravitated towards me because I _couldn't_ judge him based on his looks, so I'm certainly not going to start now just 'cause I happened to find out what he looks like."

It's not like, if he ever woke her up from one of her many recurring nightmares, she'd see his white hair and shining fangs suspended above her, and still half asleep, she'd freak out and try to get away from him.

And why the hell did she just have a mental picture of them sleeping together in the same bed?! But...that _was_ what she wanted. A relationship with him. She'd told Kikyou she wanted to get married and have a family, and here was a man who loved her. Who cared if he wasn't fully human? She sure as hell didn't. The only thought she had on the subject was her previous fleeting sympathy regarding the fact that she'd die so much sooner than him.

 _Oh gods_...

Belatedly, it just occurred to Kagome that the youki signature Kikyou had felt following her the other day _had_ to be Inuyasha. Well, it didn't _have_ to be, but it made sense. He knew where she lived, and would therefore know which bus she took to work, and hadn't she even shared with him the fact that she'd nearly missed her bus once? Hadn't he immediately offered to walk her to the bus stop on her way home, that very same day?

Inu-youkai – benevolent ones, at least – were very protective of their humans. It was clear to her now that Inuyasha had been trying to protect her by not letting her know what he was, convinced it would have freaked her out, and his desire to protect her probably went much deeper than that. He was following her around, not in a creepy, stalkerish way, but more like a guard dog, to make sure she stayed safe. There was probably also a bit of lost puppy in there, too, because now that she fully grasped his 'undesirability' to the rest of the world, he probably felt like he'd had, and lost, his one and only chance at happiness with her. If it hadn't been for the unfortunate coincidence that was the circumstances surrounding her blindness, even if it had just been a completely different type of lower youkai that'd attacked her, then she was sure he would've braved telling her he was hanyou during their first date. It wasn't the hanyou part he was worried about her not accepting, it was the inu part. The very thought that she might be terrified of him had terrified him.

"I'm going to make this right," she said then, before turning her focus back on her mother's soul again. "Mama, this is important," she stressed. "I need to know how you'd feel about me being in a serious relationship with an inu-hanyou. I mean, we might even get married and have kids one day, and if his youki's strong enough to do the full-youkai transformation, which it probably is considering his father is a daiyoukai, then they'd be hanyou kids. Would you be okay with that?"

Even with her shades still on, Atsuko could make out Kagome's milky eyes through the tinted glass, and they seemed to pierce right through her very soul in that moment.

It took Mrs. Higurashi a few seconds to realize she recognized the sensation, but she had nothing to fear from her daughter probing her heart as she answered quite truthfully with, "All that matters to me is your happiness, and, from the sound of things, poor Yasha's happiness as well. He seems like such a nice young man, and if you two do find that you complete one another, that is the happily ever after I have always dreamed could one day be yours. And if you two give me grandchildren one day, I certainly won't mind if they're also puppies," she added with a laugh. "That'll just make them all the easier to spoil rotten when I babysit!"

"Mama!"

Laughing, Kagome wiped a rogue tear from her face, and then told her mother about her plan to have Miroku drive her over to Inuyasha's apartment the following day.

"I don't know how long I'll be over there, and I have no idea where it is and wouldn't be able to find my way back, so if Yasha..." Shaking her head, she corrected herself again. "If Inuyasha is going to drive me home, I want to make sure Souta and Jii-chan don't get weird at the feel of his approaching youki.

"We'll tell them tonight at dinner, together."

The fierce mama bear attitude Kagome was sensing in her mother told her that if the senior Higurashi had anything negative to say about his granddaughter dating an inu-hanyou, her mother would have her back.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Reaching the bottom of the shrine steps, Kagome only had to wait for maybe a minute or two when an approaching car's rhythmic horn beeping got her attention. Pulling up along the curb, Kagome headed towards the sound of the engine before Miroku could even get out of the driver's seat.

"I got it," Kagome said when she heard his door open, as she found his car and felt around for the door handle. Finding it, she got inside, and Miroku shut his door again before pulling away.

"Anxious, are we?" he teased as he drove off.

"A little," she admitted with a bit of a nervous laugh.

Before the silence between them could grow, she spoke back up with, "I really appreciate this, Miroku-sama."

"Kagome, please, I've told you before, it's just Miroku. Unless you want me to start calling you Kagome-sama as well."

She laughed again, but a little more bitterly this time.

"I don't deserve such a title," she said.

"And I do?" he joked, chuckling. "You might not think so if you'd met me prior to my lovely wife turning me into a one-woman man."

That earned the smile he was hoping for.

"Being promiscuous is neither here nor there," she dismissed then, still smiling. "It's just a matter of status. You're a reiki user-"

"And so are you," he politely interrupted.

"Not anymore," she argued.

"On the contrary," he insisted. "If you have regained your ability to sense a person's soul, a rarer gift that not every reiki wielder possesses, then I feel I can safely say your other abilities should eventually resurface, as well."

"I hope so," she admitted then, "but if not, I got the most important ability back." Sighing, she added, "It's not like I'm going to be able to go after attacking evil spirits anymore, anyway, and while I would still purify tainted objects for people if I could, it's not like I was the only person at our shrine who could perform that task for visitors."

"Well, I certainly still hope that the rest of your abilities come back, but I must say under the circumstances I have to agree you have regained the most important one. And you said it was brought about by your desperation to know what he was thinking and feeling?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I just...I just felt so blind all over again, not knowing what was in his heart when that was an ability I'd always had my whole life until the accident. One I'd never realized how deeply I missed until I was in love with a man and needed to know if he felt the same way."

Thinking about it a moment, Kagome was completely honest when she said, "If the kami had given me a choice in that moment, told me somehow that I could either have my ability to sense what was in people's hearts back, or I could have my sight back instead, but not both, I would have chosen my ability to sense people's hearts. _That's_ how badly I'd wanted that ability back when it happened."

"If the kami did have a hand in it, I'm glad they were listening," Miroku said.

Smiling, Kagome replied with "Me too."

It was just a few short minutes later that they pulled into the guest parking for Inuyasha's apartment building.

"You weren't kidding when you told me he didn't live that far away from me," Kagome commented as she and Miroku both got out of the car.

Miroku guided her to and inside Inuyasha's apartment building, and road with her up the elevator to the top floor, but once he assured her the correct door was right in front of her, only a few feet away in a straight line, and that Inuyasha was indeed home because he could sense his youki, Kagome surprised the monk by asking him to leave.

"I can't just leave you here," he protested.

"Why not? You said it yourself, Inuyasha's home, so it's not like you're abandoning me in the middle of nowhere all alone with no idea how to get back. He'd never let anything bad happen to me, so no matter how this conversation goes, or doesn't go, I know he'll at least see me safely back to the shrine."

Miroku, reluctantly, had to admit she had a point, but still.

"He's not going to be very happy with me."

"He's probably going to be mad at you for bringing me here no matter if you left or waited, at least until I can explain," she pointed out logically. "In fact, do you know how good his hearing is?" she asked him then. "Because I bet he's already aware of us, or at the very least, if you can sense his youki, then he's gotta be able to sense your reiki."

"Another valid point."

"So go already," she said, turning to 'face' him. "Shoo, shoo..." she gestured with her hands.

Laughing, Miroku conceded defeat and headed away. "Good luck," he said, in regard to the conversation he knew she planned on having with his friend and boss.

Honestly, he couldn't see how the conversation couldn't go well, at least once Kagome got it through Inuyasha's thick skull that they could still make things work between them. The hanyou loved her, badly, and Miroku was ever so grateful that Kagome was as understanding and forgiving as she was.

Trying to convince herself of that same point, that there was no way this conversation could go badly, Kagome took a deep breath and, with her cane out just to make sure she didn't trip on anything, headed up towards the door Miroku had pointed her at. Knowing what she knew, now, she was not surprised in the slightest when, before she even got all the way up to the door, it opened.

She still couldn't sense his youki, no matter how hard she tried, but she could sense _him_ , 'see' the soul of the person standing before her, and her heart ached at the confusion and fear rushing through him at her presence. There was nothing in his soul that revealed his youkai heritage, but that didn't surprise her because in her past experiences, if memory served, she'd always felt whatever spiritual energy someone had possessed separately from their heart and emotions. Regardless of what she could or couldn't sense in him, knowing that it was not his human time of the month and he therefore had all of _his_ youkai senses intact, which were undoubtedly trained on her to their fullest, she tried her best to tamp down her own nervousness, lest he misunderstand and honestly think she was facing her fear of dogs in order to see him. She had butterflies in her stomach, but they were just of the normal variety.

"Inuyasha..." she began on purpose, letting him know _up front_ that she knew. "I...I need to talk to you, please..."

 _Inuyasha_...

The sound of his full name from her lips...it did funny things to him. He normally didn't care for his full name, but only because he usually heard it spoken with a sneer at the _inu_ part, as if it were thrown on for emphasis by the speaker, like an insulting prefix, instead of the actual first part of his name. But the way Kagome said it, so... _normally_...and her entire tone, begging him to listen to her, to speak with her, to not push her aside. How could he refuse her?

He couldn't, just like she had told Miroku. Oh, he had heard them all right, had felt Miroku's reiki when he'd first pulled into the parking lot downstairs, but he hadn't realized Kagome was with him until overhearing what they were talking about out in the hallway. He wasn't angry with Miroku for bringing her here, though; not if this was what he _hoped_ it was.

"Come in," he said then, stepping out of the way so she could enter on her own.

As soon as she was inside, he said "Here," as he took her cane and folded it up, placing it on top of his small getabako. She wordlessly slipped out of her shoes, then, and without needing to be told, because this was a genkan she was unfamiliar with, he picked them up and put them in an empty spot in the cubby before grabbing a pair of his guest slippers.

"You can go barefoot if you want, 'cause that's what I do, or if you'd rather have slippers then I've got a pair you can slip on," he said.

"Barefoot is fine if you don't mind it," she said, and muttering a quiet "Keh" he put the slippers back.

"This way," he said then, as he took her hand like he had before, meaning only to lead her without trying to seem _too_ familiar with her.

He noticed right away as her fingers began tentatively exploring his claws, and he tried not to let his apprehension show in his mannerisms, but belatedly realized that was a pointless endeavor as she could obviously sense it in him anyway, which she proved when she quickly retracted her fingers. No heightened sense of fear was coming off of her, so he knew she hadn't pulled away because his claws had bothered her. She'd pulled away because she'd sensed that it bothered _him_ , except it didn't really bother him, he'd only been worried about what her reaction was going to be, and that worry had dictated said reaction.

"Even though we can sense what each other is feeling, we still need to communicate with words to avoid misunderstandings," he managed to say then. "Yes I got nervous when you started feeling my claws, but that didn't mean you had to stop touching them."

"Well I should have at least asked first. It was very forward of me, so I'm sorry."

"Keh, don't worry 'bout it."

Leading her into the living room where she had a seat on the western style sofa, he took a seat across from her in the matching chair, a part of him wanting to sit right next to her but another part of him knowing he shouldn't dare to be so bold until actually letting her say what she'd come over to say.

"I'm listening," he said softly, though not quite as softly as he'd spoken during their date.

She hadn't realized it until now how much more she preferred his somewhat roughened voice. She supposed the voice change made sense, since his vocal cords probably completely changed when he turned human; there was no way a human could make the growl he'd done yesterday. Fortunately, thinking about his growling now, it didn't bother her. Like she'd told her mother, he was a _person_ , and that made all the difference. He'd just startled her yesterday, and it'd triggered her PTSD a little bit, but now that she _knew_ he could make that kind of sound, if he ever did, like say if they got broken into and he growled at the burglar, well that wouldn't scare her in the slightest. She'd be grateful he scared off the burglar!

And why the hell does her fantasy mind keep having her and Inuyasha living together?!

 _Wishful thinking_... she mused then.

"Well, as I'm sure you know, I know what you are, now," she started then, figuring it was already obvious but wanting to make sure there couldn't possibly be any confusion between them. Like he'd just said. Communication, with words. "Please don't be mad at Sango, but since your growl already pretty much told me you were demonic, which I'm sure was the point, she then told me what you are, specifically."

He remained silent so she continued.

"And I'm _so_ sorry I was afraid at first, for that first split second. I mean, I just wasn't _expecting_ it. If you growled like that again now, I mean just like a demonstration but without any hostile intentions behind it, it wouldn't bother me. It was just...it was just so sudden."

"It was a dick move. I didn't want to scare you, and then I deliberately scared you. I'm sorry," he apologized then.

Facing him, she offered him her warmest smile.

"Well I'm not afraid of you, just so you know. I'm not forcing myself to be here. I'm only afraid of vicious, brainless lower beasts that just happen to be canine in nature. Even if you were pureblooded inu-youkai and could transform into a dog, that's still not the same thing, and knowing it was _you_?" She shook her head. "It still wouldn't bother me."

Her smile widened at the sense of wonder she suddenly got from him at her words.

"You really mean that?"

"Can't you tell that I do?"

He scented her then, and there wasn't a trace of deception. She was being completely honest.

"I guess that means I can stop hating myself for accidentally whimpering, since that's what set the whole thing in motion. I didn't make that sound on purpose and I was kicking myself all of yesterday for it. If only the whole dog topic hadn't come up, I could have brushed you off, or so I'd told myself, at least."

She shook her head.

"First of all, yes please stop hating yourself for whimpering. I'm _glad_ you did, thus triggering, as you put it, the whole dog topic. And no, you wouldn't have been able to get rid of me otherwise, because I already got my sixth sense back, anyway, and knowing you love me, I wouldn't have let you continue to pretend you didn't."

"And..." he began hesitantly, almost not daring to hope. "And you said it wasn't one-sided, right?"

"You think I would've put up with all your shit if I didn't love you?" she asked in a jokingly incredulous tone, which had him barking out a laugh.

And it did actually sound kind of like a bark, she realized, while wondering how and why she'd never noticed it until now since she'd heard him laugh lots of times over the last two years.

 _We really do just see what we want to see, or hear what we want to hear, in this case_...

It dawned on her then that the truth had been right in front of her all along, but her own unconscious prejudices had had her just automatically assuming he was human, as if 'human' was the default setting and youkai were somehow exotic. Maybe they were a bit rare _right_ in that particular part of the city, but they certainly weren't unheard of, like she'd told Kikyou.

"I'm sorry I kept what I was hidden from you," he said then, once he got his laughter back under control. He both sounded and felt genuinely apologetic, and hopeful she could forgive him.

"I understand," she assured him. "I mean, after I went and told you I was afraid of dogs-"

He flinched as she said it, which she never before would have known but now she could sense it.

"I'm so sorry," she said instead of finishing her original sentence.

"It's not just that," he confessed then. "I mean, yeah after you told me about that attack, I knew there was no way I could tell you, but before that. I mean...I've kept what I was from you for two years, when I had no idea about your past yet."

Since Kagome had already pretty much figured out his reasoning behind that, she waved it off.

"I can't blame you for wanting someone you could chat with who treated you like a normal person instead of being prejudiced towards you because of your heritage," she said. "Sango and Miroku both assured me you'd had every intention of telling me the truth on our first date, that you knew I needed to know if we were going to pursue a romantic relationship, so as far as I'm concerned, you were doing it all by the book."

The tremendous wave of relief that washed over him made her smile. When she sensed his desire to get closer to her, his longing so palpable she could almost taste it, she patted the seat on the sofa beside her.

"You can sit over here if you want, you know," she said with an almost teasing edge, and he felt embarrassed then, to realize she'd sensed his desire to be near her.

"I'm not used to anyone else being able to know what _I'm_ feeling," he confessed as he did her bidding and took a seat beside her on the small, two-seater sofa.

"And how is it fair that that nose of yours tells you what everyone else is feeling but you don't have to worry about your own emotions being on display?" she teased. "I think turnabout is fair play."

"Speaking of my nose telling me how others are feeling, I really don't get any fear from you," he stated rather in awe.

"That's because I'm not afraid," she assured him. "I could never be afraid of you. Well, unless you turned into a total monster and attacked me, but you're not going to do that, right?"

He could tell she was actually only kidding, but that didn't stop him from getting deathly serious.

"I would give my life to protect you from harm, and if my own claws ever caused you harm I would give _you_ my life in recompense."

"Whoa whoa whoa, this isn't the Feudal era now," she joked, but inside she was actually, truly touched, and he knew that. "I appreciate the vow, but I won't let you take it _too_ literally. Accidents happen and if you ever accidentally scratched me just a teeny tiny bit, that wouldn't be the end of the world."

"If you say so."

He didn't sound convinced.

"Besides, your claws didn't feel _that_ sharp," she added then, as she reached out her hands. "May I?"

He knew what she was asking. Hesitantly, he placed his right hand in both of hers. He'd already told her she hadn't needed to stop touching them, right? After everything he'd put her through, he owed her this, to let her explore him, truly get to know him, in the only way she could.

Slowly, carefully, she explored the size and shape of his hand, tracing each of his fingers one by one. He blushed at the intimate contact, but let her have her exploration of him. Finally, she reached his clawed fingertips, and she explored the size and shape of his claws with her own fingertips, even daring to test their sharpness by pressing his index finger's claw against the palm of her left hand. They were more like blunted talons, but she could imagine they could still do a fair amount of damage if he put some real force behind it, and that wasn't even counting if he could channel his youki through his claws, which she'd bet he totally could. She knew Toga Taisho was an insanely powerful, centuries old daiyoukai; during the drive over here Miroku had told her that Inuyasha's youki was more powerful than a lot of full-blooded youkai and she didn't doubt it for a minute.

"So we've established that you love me and I love you," she spoke up after a moment. "In case that doesn't make everything crystal clear for you, that means I want to keep dating you. I'm not afraid of you, but I do have PTSD, so if you make a noise I can't guarantee it won't get my adrenaline pumping, so you'll have to bear with me on that one, but I _want_ to be your girlfriend. I promise."

He swallowed loud enough for her to hear him, before gruffly whispering, "K-Kagome..."

She squeezed the hand she still held in both of hers.

"I mean it, Inuyasha. Screw what anybody else might say or think about the two of us being together. Let's go out to the fancy restaurants with you in all your youkai glory, strolling in like we own the place. Or if you really don't want to, then let's just share our meals in the restaurant you really _do_ own. Hell, we can just stay in and get a pizza for all I care." He chuckled a bit at that. "The point is," she continued with an amused smile of her own, "I want to keep seeing you, if you'll excuse my poor choice of words."

Lowering her head, a touch of sadness drifted into her scent as she let go of his hand.

"I wish I knew what you look like, but unfortunately, unlike with my so-called third eye, wishing hard enough isn't going to make it come true this time." She shrugged. "I mean, Sango told me that your hair is white, but I don't even know what color your eyes are, and knowing your hair and eye color doesn't really tell me what you _look_ like, anyway."

"My eyes are golden yellow, except when I bring my youkai blood to the surface. They turn red, then, with blue pupils." Kagome stiffened, and he guessed right away, "I take it the inugami's eyes looked like that? Not surprising, if it was in full attack mode at the time."

Taking a moment to take _her_ right hand in both of _his_ , he promised her, "I don't turn into a brainless monster when I'm like that."

Taking a deep breath, because he usually didn't string together so many words in a single sitting, he squeezed her hand and explained, "My father...even though he basically wants nothing to do with me, and told me not to go near the youkai side of town for now, _some_ part of him must care for me, or at least didn't want to risk a scandal if I transformed and had no idea what was happening to me and somehow or another caused some trouble, because when I was young he sent my mother a book about how to control your inner beast so that it doesn't control you. It can be very hard for hanyou, especially stronger hanyou who have full-youkai strength youki contained within a mostly human body. It requires spiritual practice and training, probably similar to your miko training, for how to bring out your inner powers, and master control over them. It would've probably been a lot easier on me, and my mother, if I'd had a youkai teacher, but at least with the how to's written down I had instructions I could follow over and over until I got it right. And my mom had a few ofuda on hand just in case I got it wrong."

He laughed a little at that, and squeezed her hand again reassuringly.

"She never needed to use any of them. I would _never_ harm my mother, even when I was having an Incredible Hulk moment, transforming on accident as a pissed off teen. I was never mad at _her_ , just the rest of the world," he clarified. "And nowadays, I don't transform on accident. I'd probably have to literally be fighting for my life in order to transform automatically. Supposedly it's a safety mechanism, according to the book, but since this ain't the Feudal era I seriously don't expect to ever be lying bleeding to death anywhere."

"I certainly hope not," she agreed.

"And as for hair and eye color not really telling you what I look like..." he began then, letting his words trail off as he raised her right hand up and placed her palm gently against her face.

"You don't mind?"

He shrugged.

"Wouldn't have done it if I'd minded. I don't normally like being pawed all over, but I'll _gladly_ make an exception in your case. You're not going to smack me around. At least I hope not," he laughed.

She started to laugh too, but then something in the mix of emotions she was getting from him clued her in to something.

"You weren't...you were bullied as a child, weren't you?"

It was weird talking to him with her hand on his face so she lowered her hand, but she fully intended on taking him up on his offer momentarily.

He shrugged in answer to her question.

"By human children, so it's not like they could actually hurt me," he assured her. "I mean, it hurt _emotionally_ , but whenever one of the bigger kids punched me I just let him. My mother had made sure I understood that if I swung back I could accidentally seriously injure, or even kill them. And their physical blows didn't hurt me in the slightest. Physically, at least. So I just let them wear themselves out. The only thing that hurt was not understanding why the older boys at school all ganged up on me all the time. But looking back on it, I'm _relieved_ I didn't go to a youkai school. I probably would've been coming home black and blue if that'd been the case."

"The world is so unfair to hanyou," Kagome sympathized. Lifting both hands back up, she said, "These hands will never touch you in anger or hatred."

That said, she carefully, gently, she placed the fingertips of both hands on either side of his face, on his cheeks. He remained silent, then, and just let her explore his facial structure, the shape of his cheek bones, nose, jaw and chin.

"Mama was right when she called you handsome," she murmured quietly after a moment.

"Actually, you called me handsome," he pointed out.

"And she confirmed I was right," Kagome countered.

Suddenly, he felt a bit nervous again, and she was about to lower her hands but then both of his were on hers, keeping them against his cheeks.

"There's...there's one thing you need to know about that...that your mother didn't see since I was human at the time."

"Wha-"

Before Kagome could fully question, he moved both of her hands up to his ears. She was confused for all of two seconds, and then she gasped, but not in fright, as a huge smile spread out across her face that had him chuckling despite himself.

"I didn't even...I don't know why it didn't even _occur_ to me..."

Inuyasha shrugged the best he could, and she could feel the emotion from him even if she couldn't detect the movement.

"All hanyou look different, and not all get the ears," he explained. "Plus some less powerful youkai can't fully do humanoid forms and always have lingering animal traits. The ears aren't what brand me as hanyou to the youkai world, just the smell of my mixed blood."

Thinking about it a moment, he added, "And I've overheard enough humans call me a youkai, muttered under their breath, so they don't even know I'm half human, either, and just wonder what the hell one of 'my kind' is doing in _their_ part of the city."

"I'd say there needs to be a safe zone for hanyou but that could be turned into segregation too easily," Kagome commented.

"It's not so bad near the border between sides of the city," he told her then. "I guess, unofficially, those few mixed couples that are out there figured that living in the middle part of town made the most sense." Thinking about it, he added, "Of course, there's no _official_ middle, but there's no official cut off between the human and youkai sides, either, it just sort of happened organically."

"Most big cities are like that," she confirmed. "Then you've got the smattering of smaller towns where one town will be mostly youkai, another mostly human. It isn't right. We should be more fully mixed together."

Inuyasha just shrugged again.

"That's just the way the world is. And there _are_ some very hanyou friendly smaller towns out there. I've looked it up. There are indeed some mixed towns, in completely different prefectures, but I just didn't want to move so far away from my mother."

"Well that makes sense," Kagome acknowledged then. "And I'm glad you didn't move away, because then I never would've gotten to meet you."

"Yeah..." he agreed, closing his eyes as she began rubbing both of his ears in a particular way that made him want to whimper in pleasure though he managed to keep the sound locked inside. "I'm definitely glad we met, and I'm sorry, again, for putting you through all that shit for the last two weeks."

"Well, Christmas is in three weeks," she pointed out then. "I'm sure you can think of some way of making it up to me."

"Whatever you want," he agreed. "I can buy you anything, take you anywhere, or we can keep it simple. It's all up to you."

"All I want for Christmas is you," she said with a giggle, quoting one of her favorite songs.

He grabbed her hands.

"You'd better stop that. If I were a cat I'd be purring." Chuckling he added, "And if you want me, you can have me."

"Promise?"

"If I have your permission to kiss you, I'll _prove_ it to you."

Blinking behind her shades, she smelled a little nervous, but then licking her lips, she answered, "Yes please."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

"First things first," Inuyasha said, "these gotta go." He removed her sunglasses then, setting them down on the side table next to the couch. Touching _her_ face, gently, tenderly, he assured her, "You're beautiful, you know. The scars are nothing, and you don't need eyes to see with when your very soul can see mine. Let me show it how much I love you."

He leaned forward, then, and she could feel his breath against her face. Then, his lips were touching hers, and while it'd been years since she'd kissed anybody Kagome wondered in that moment just what kind of kissing experience Inuyasha could really have, so she surprised but also delighted him when she suddenly took control. Wrapping her left arm around his back while raising her right up to the back of his head, grabbing a fistful of hair, she guided him, encouraged him to experiment and explore, and his nose easily told him when he did it right.

Getting bolder, he wrapped his own arms around her in turn, holding her close. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, and let her explore when he felt her own tongue tracing his fangs. They were sharper than his claws and could easily hurt her on accident, but he was careful, even when the scent of her growing arousal had a possessive growl bubbling up in the back of his throat as he moaned. Kagome wasn't disturbed by the sound. In fact it seemed to turn her on even further, as the hand on his back gripped a fistful of shirt, as though she were refusing to let go of him. Her possessiveness turned _him_ on even further, and suddenly, a very distinguishable tingling sensation coming from his lap had him panicking before breaking away from the kiss.

He and Kagome both took a moment to catch their breaths, but then smirking, she said, "You know I can sense that, right?"

Embarrassment flooded him, which made her feel guilty because that hadn't been her intention, but easily able to read her emotional reaction on her face in combination with the speck of unhappiness suddenly clouding her scent, he tried his best to laugh it off.

"Hey don't feel bad just 'cause I'm embarrassed my body's got a mind of its own."

"Oh, so _you_ weren't thinking about it, just your body was?"

Her tone was teasing, and with that nasty little tiny bit of guilt gone from her scent she smelled happy again. Happy and _aroused_.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know."

Grabbing her right hand, he used her right index finger to tap his nose, and then it was her turn to be embarrassed, but only for a second.

"Okay, I admit it, I want to jump your bones."

She couldn't see the way his eyes popped open as wide as saucers, but she could feel his shock and that was enough to make her laugh.

"I didn't mean today! Well..." Finger on chin, she pretended to think it over. "I'll let you take me out to dinner a few more times, first, if that'll make it seem more proper, but you know what? I think the whole _dating_ part of our relationship can already be over with. I'm your girlfriend now, if you still want me to be."

His response was to pull her into a crushing embrace, and she immediately hugged him back. She felt him shudder against her a little, and it felt to her like he was trying not to cry.

"I never thought I'd find anybody to love me..." he murmured against her, his face practically buried in the crook of her neck.

"Neither did I," she admitted, which had him turning his head enough to speak more clearly into her ear as he asked her in barely a whisper, "How could you think that?"

"Look at me."

He snorted.

"And I'm only a few months away from becoming Christmas Cake."

She was referring to the stupid notion that women over twenty-six years old were no longer desirable, like real Christmas cake the day after Christmas. He snorted again, then pulled away but only so that he could grab her face in both hands and kiss her again.

It was just meant to be a quick kiss, to reassure her of her desirability, but when he tried to pull away again she didn't let him. Grabbing his hair with both of her hands, she pulled him right back down for more. They made out for the next minute or two until somehow or another, as he tried to pull away again only for her to follow his retreat with forward motion of her own, Kagome wound up in his lap, with Inuyasha sitting back on the couch instead of twisted slightly to the side, his left hand on her back and his right hand on the back of her head while both of her hands were in between them, desperately clutching at the front of the shirt he was wearing.

It took Kagome a second to realize it wasn't actually a Western style long-sleeve shirt, but a robe, most likely a kosode since she hadn't noticed his sleeves being particularly billowy. She hadn't meant to, but tugging on the front of the robe had loosened it a bit, and then she got a naughty idea. Still kissing him, she snaked her hands underneath the loosened front folds of his kosode to touch bare flesh. He felt startled, but then he immediately got more aggressive, breaking his mouth away from hers but only so that he could trail his tongue up and down along the sides of her throat, while the hand on her back scooted lower until it was cupping her ass.

Kagome's legs were folded at the knees on either side of his thighs as she straddled him, her _bare_ legs as she was only wearing one of her pleated skirts topped by a long-sleeve blouse, and when she felt just how excited he was becoming she responded by deliberately rocking against him.

Gasping, he finally pried his mouth away from her throat, but he did nothing to stop her movements. In fact, the hand that had been on the back of her head flew down to join the other, cupping her other ass cheek.

"If you don't want to take this any further you'd better say so now," Kagome murmured demurely as she took her turn leaning down to lick _his_ throat, while slowly pushing his loosened robe down his shoulders.

He moaned, and squeezed her ass.

"Isn't...isn't that supposed to be my line?" he managed to rasp, his hips thrusting upward when she found a particularly sensitive spot on his neck.

"To be brutally honest, I'm working on a five-year dry spell, 'cause I hadn't had a boyfriend in nearly two years before I lost my sight," Kagome confessed then. "I'm an adult, capable of making my own decisions, I'm sober, so my judgment's not impaired at the moment, and I _am_ your girlfriend, aren't I?"

The primary emotion she was feeling from him was disbelief, but in a fantastical sort of way, like he just couldn't believe his wildest dreams were actually coming true. Of course, the very likely possibility of him being a virgin hadn't slipped her mind, but she didn't want to ask and embarrass him again. Turned out she didn't need to ask, though, 'cause he was more than happy to open up to her fully.

"Yes...yes you _are_ my girlfriend." He emphasized the point by thrusting his hips again. He wasn't wearing a fundoshi, preferring to go commando in his hakama if he wasn't going out into public, so it was only his hakama and her panties that separated them.

"I've...I've never had sex in my hanyou form before, but I'm looking forward to it!"

It didn't take her long to do the math. He'd never been on a date before, and only turned human one night a month.

"Hookers?" she asked, her tone simply curious.

"Is that a problem?" His tone of voice didn't betray the slight nervousness she could feel in him.

"Absolutely not," she assured him, and she was being completely honest. "I still get to be your most important first."

"First and _only_ , if we can figure out a way to unlock your reiki."

It was Kagome's turn to gasp.

 _Shit, I'd completely forgotten!_

Mixed in along with all her miko studies from years ago was the minor detail of youkai life-bonds, sometimes performed between mated pairs although it was more and more rare in that day and age. Only very powerful youkai were capable of forming the bond, and it could not be formed between a youkai and a _normal_ human because both partners needed to have spiritual powers. A rare case of a male youkai life-bonded to his miko mate _was_ documented in the history books, though. The Immortal Miko, as she was called. Of course, she wasn't still alive _now_. They'd actually both died in battle back during the Feudal era, her youkai mate fighting alongside her against an evil youkai, but they'd been well-known enough amongst all the shrines and temples that their existence had been documented, and along with it, the fact that it was biologically possible for a youkai to perform the life-bond with a reiki wielder.

Most reiki users wouldn't want to be married to a youkai in the first place, let alone life-bonded to one, because most shrine families were tied to other shrine families, reiki user married to reiki user, to help ensure the next generation. They considered it a holy duty of sorts, especially since other reiki users, like Kikyou, remained celibate, dedicating themselves to the kami. Since not all reiki users chose to reproduce, others felt an even greater responsibility to do so. Fortunately, Kagome hadn't been raised that way, and besides, her brother's reiki was so strong that even if he married a 'normal' woman Kagome was pretty sure their kids would have the gift.

On the other side of the coin, most youkai would not want to be life-bonded to a human, even though they respected reiki wielders more for their spiritual powers. They were still _human_ , and extremely fragile, from a youkai's point of view. The life-bond literally tied two people's souls together, and while the human would gain some of their youkai partner's strengths and abilities, such as slowed aging and rapid healing, it was still easier for them to die than a true youkai, and if they died, the youkai would die, too. For a lot of _important_ youkai, having a bonded human mate would be the easiest way for their enemies to take them out, because instead of trying a direct assault they'd just go after the human, instead.

"Kagome?"

It took her a second to realize she'd been zoning out, and had been quiet too long for Inuyasha's comfort.

"Sorry I...I had just completely forgotten that life-bonds were a thing," she admitted with a laugh. "The one thing that made me the saddest, when I learned you were a hanyou, was the thought of forcing you to watch me grow old and die, and you being alone again afterwards."

"So does that mean you _will_ do the bonding with me?"

"Most people ask 'will you marry me' first," she laughed again, "but yes...yes I will, if we can figure out how the hell to unlock my reiki, anyway."

"We'll work on that," he said. He didn't sound too worried. "Since you were able to unlock your empathic senses, I'm sure the rest of it is all right there, just under the surface, just waiting for the right moment to reveal itself."

"I hope you're right."

"In the meantime," he chuckled, glad she couldn't see his sheepish expression. "Yeah, I kinda screwed up a little bit there, but, will you marry me?"

Giggling, she reached up and, finding his ears, gave them both a playful tweak.

"I already told you yes," she pointed out, before frowning. "Is this crazy?" she asked. "I mean, sure we only went on the one date, and then had two horrible weeks of misunderstanding, but that's all been sorted out, and we _do_ know each other, have known each other for two years..."

"Exactly," he agreed when her words seemed to trail off. "Hell, I fell in love with you long before I even braved asking you out on that first date, and that one date was all I needed to know everything about you."

"I was already crushing on you, too," she admitted, "otherwise I wouldn't have had the courage to say yes to that first date. I said yes because I _wanted_ to date you, wanted the chance of a real relationship with you."

"So then I don't see a problem, do you?"

In a teasing tone, she pointed out, "I don't see anything, remember?"

"Well, good, then. That means you don't see a problem," he joked to cover his blush at the slip of the tongue.

"So then where were we?" she asked, as if she could have possibly forgotten, as she slowly began rocking back and forth against the stiffness that'd been ever present during their entire conversation.

Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, he groaned as he started guiding her movements with his hands on her cheeks, grinding her against him. She gasped when he managed to stimulate her just right, and the flood of renewed arousal that washed over her had his nose twitching in delight.

"I think..." he began then, as he let go of her ass, but only so that he could pull his arms out of the sleeves of his partly opened kosode before then reaching for both of her hands with his. "We were right here," he finished, as he placed both of her palms against his bare chest.

Kagome eagerly explored his physique, then, admiring his chiseled chest and lower, his rock hard abs.

"Don't tell me this comes naturally..." she pouted, thinking about her own figure.

"All right," he teased, "I won't."

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"Hmm...well I guess I can't complain."

Slowly, torturously so, she dragged the tips of her fingers down his six-pack, and then reaching the waist of his low slung hakama, she realized what his pants were when she attempted to locate the fly but instead found an old style tie. Plus the texture of the woven fabric was a giveaway. Smirking, then, she moved her right hand around to his left hip, and it only took a brief exploration to locate the side slit in his trousers. His kosode was still tucked in around the waist but that was easily remedied with a quick tug.

Inuyasha did nothing to hinder her exploration, the dominant emotion she was getting from him being anticipation, as she snaked her hand within the side slit of his hakama and, scooting herself backwards in his lap a little – a move he allowed since his hands still on her ass could have stopped her – she found what she was looking for, what she'd been sitting on for the last twenty minutes or, so and gave it a squeeze.

Sucking in air through his teeth, his whole body shuddered.

"Maybe...maybe it's time to move this to my bedroom," he barely managed to rasp.

She actually shrugged.

"Scenery doesn't matter to me, but if you don't want your couch smelling like sex then that's fine."

He thought about that, and also about whether or not he'd even be able to pick her up and carry her off to his bedroom at that point. Honestly, he didn't think he'd be able to get his legs to work.

"Then I guess we're fine right where we are," he decided, and Kagome hummed her agreement as she started stroking him.

Moaning loudly, his eyes rolling back in his head, Inuyasha's head fell back against the back of the couch, his hands falling away from her ass to tightly grip the edge of the couch cushions on either side of him. If it had been a leather couch he probably would have damaged it with his claws, but it was a woven fabric, instead. Which, he knew, would absorb the scent so much better. At one point during her ministrations he accidentally growled a little, but it wasn't a threatening sound and after just briefly flinching in surprise Kagome doubled her efforts, her left hand plucking at the ties to his hakama.

Of course, that would be hard for her to do without being able to see what she was doing, and especially with only one hand, so Inuyasha was quick to assist her, and she pulled her left hand away when she felt both of his move to undo the tie for her. Then his hakama were undone, and she removed her hand from the side slit just long enough to pull the entire front flap down completely. He watched her then, in anticipation of her touch, anticipation she could feel through her sixth sense, and she did not disappoint when she immediately wrapped her right hand back around him and began stroking steadily.

He moaned again, and letting his head flop backwards once more, he couldn't help but chuckle at the image they made together. She was still dressed in her skirt and blouse, looking almost like a school girl except the top wasn't styled like those sailor tops, thank goodness. She was sitting on his lap, and he was sitting back on the sofa, white kosode splayed open and black hakama untied with the front flap shoved down, the girl in his lap pleasuring him with true intent.

How. The. Fuck. Had he gotten so fucking lucky?

"G-get your damn clothes off," he rasped suddenly. "I don't want our first time together to just be me spilling all over my stomach."

Smirking, Kagome released him while admitting, "Oh, I wasn't going to let you do that. I'd be able to tell when you were almost there." She tapped the side of her head with her left index finger for emphasis.

He barked out a quiet laugh.

"Bitch..." he mumbled with no real heat behind it, and she only laughed as well.

"Maybe, but I'm _your_ bitch."

The double meaning behind what she said, for him as a canine, was not lost on her, and he instantly felt his love for her get even stronger, even though he hadn't previously thought that was possible.

Kagome obeyed his command, then, unbuttoning her blouse slowly, teasingly, almost feeling it as his eyes roamed over every inch of newly exposed skin. Getting the last button undone, she draped both arms back a bit and tugged on each cuff with her other hand until she was able to get the blouse to just slip down her arms to drop on the floor at the foot of the couch. Then, she reached up with her arms folded behind her back to unhook her bra, the pretty white support garment going slack.

"Allow me," Inuyasha spoke up then, right when she was about to let its straps fall down her arms which she'd brought forward.

She stopped moving then, and allowed Inuyasha to slide her bra straps down her arms, himself, exposing her breasts slowly, almost reverently. He tossed her bra aside once it was fully removed, and then Kagome was just about to stand up so that she could remove her skirt and panties but before she could, his right hand against her bare back held her in place as he leaned her backwards somewhat, leaning forward himself, as he captured her left breast with his mouth.

She gasped at the unexpected but wholly welcome sensation, and reached across herself with her right hand to grab a fistful of hair at the back of his head, holding him to her. He rumbled against her skin, but the sound didn't startle or bother her in the slightest. In fact, the sensation sent delightful tingles shooting through her sensitive flesh, and had a naughty part of her mind wondering what it would feel like if he did that somewhere _else_.

That thought alone was enough to make her even hornier than she already was, which his nose instantly picked up on. While he continued to lave her chest with his tongue, moving from left to right, he moved his left hand up to support her back so that he could snake his right hand down and under her skirt. Moaning, she rocked against his hand.

Finding a good rhythm, he continued with the duel onslaught until suddenly she was gasping and bucking in his arms, her milky eyes, which had been closed, flying wide open.

Kagome had had practically no warning, her climax racing up on her out of nowhere, and tilting her head up to smirk at him after he pulled away a little, she playfully asked, "Can I get the rest of my 'damn' clothes off, now?"

He laughed.

"Sorry, guess I got sidetracked there for a moment."

"That's okay, I forgive you," she teased as she scooted a little further backwards on his legs until she could unfold her own and let her feet find purchase on the floor.

She stood up, then, and unzipped her skirt before letting it fall to her feet. He took the opportunity to also pull his hakama the rest of the way down and off, kicking them to the side before also tugging his kosode out from where it was pinned between himself and the back of the sofa, tossing it to the side as well. Then he was sitting completely naked on his two-seater sofa, the term _loveseat_ taking on a whole new, literal meaning. Standing before him in nothing but white cotton panties, Kagome was a vision of loveliness, her body softer than his, but still fit in his eyes. Then, she pulled her panties down, and he hadn't known just how much that bit of cotton had actually been blocking her scent until the heady aroma hit him full force.

She smelled absolutely delicious, and his mouth watered at the thought, but he would save that particular treat for a later date.

 _Maybe after our 'second' date_ , he joked in his mind.

How the hell had he gone from thinking there was no chance in all the hells that they could ever be together, from just _yesterday_ thinking he had probably traumatized her with that stupid ass stunt he'd pulled by revealing his demonic nature by _growling_ at her, to sitting naked and aroused on his loveseat with her standing naked before him?

 _Thank you, kami!_

He would definitely have to pay tribute to the kami of her family's shrine...on the next new moon when he could step foot on the property.

As Kagome began crawling forward, he reached out to help steady her, his hands around her ribs, just below her breasts. She got settled in his lap, then, his excitement pressed between them as she started kissing him again, and his hands moved to her back, his arms wrapped around her body. After a moment of kissing, Kagome's right hand snaked down between them and began stroking him again, and grunting into the kiss, he reached down with his right hand to return the favor.

Kagome moaned into the kiss at the feel of his exploring fingers. There was no hint of nervousness in her scent; she'd already examined his claws for herself and knew they didn't come to dangerously sharp points. Not like his fangs, which he _very_ carefully started trailing up and down the sides of her throat, along with his tongue. The sensation gave her goosebumps.

Reaching down with her left hand to remove his right after a moment, she pulled her lips away from his just far enough to whisper against his mouth, "Enough teasing."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Raising herself up on her knees a bit, he steadied her with both of his hands on her waist while allowing her to guide her descent, herself, her right hand guiding _him_. Slowly, bit by bit, she lowered herself on top of him, hissing a little in mild discomfort though it wasn't really painful and she had no intention of stopping.

For Inuyasha's part, he was biting his lower lip so hard he almost punctured it with his fangs, desperately trying to keep a whimper bottled up. Kagome didn't know the specifics since she could only sense emotions, it wasn't like she could actually read his mind, but his mixed desire for her to both go even slower and hurry it the hell up was unmistakable. The feel of being one with her was nearly overwhelming for him. While as a hanyou he had a much higher tolerance for pain, and in fact he was much harder to injure in the first place, one very big exception to that rule was the part of his body that Kagome had just taken prisoner. He'd learned _long_ ago through self-exploration that sexual sensations were muted in his human form along with his senses like sight, hearing and smell. The difference wasn't nearly as severe as with those other senses, but it was definitely still noticeable, which hadn't really made sense to him at first since he'd figure that logically, if he could feel pain more strongly as a human then he should feel pleasure more strongly as one, too, but that turned out not to be the case at least when it came to sexual pleasure.

He'd found out that it was just an inu-youkai thing. Inu-youkai were apparently just very sensitive in that particular location, and he had been lucky enough to be blessed with that particular part of his youkai heritage. At the nervous system level, at least. He was actually extremely grateful that he _looked_ fully human, aside from the pink color of everything below the foreskin. A medical book on inu-youkai biology had taught him that full-blooded male inu-youkai actually formed knots. That was something he had _not_ needed to know when thinking about his father and mother getting it on, and he was extremely grateful he'd gotten that book after moving out to his own apartment so that he hadn't needed to have breakfast with her every morning with those types of thoughts in his head.

In that moment, though, he wasn't thinking about his mother. Why the hell _would_ he be? He was already well aware of the ins and outs of inu-youkai penises at that point, and in that moment the only _ins_ and _outs_ he was thinking about involved the young miko currently sitting on his lap.

Kagome was also having a bit of a 'how the hell did THIS happen' moment. She'd just had Miroku bring her over to Inuyasha's apartment so she could talk to him, let him know she knew he was inu and didn't care, reassure him that she still loved him and still wanted to be with him. It's not like he had said 'prove it' afterwards.

 _Although I'd say this definitely does!_

And she wasn't his girlfriend. Not any longer. She was his fiancée, so it was perfectly acceptable to make love to her future husband on the day he proposed.

That was her story and she was sticking with it.

"I wish I could see your face..." she whispered softly.

"Why?" he replied just as quietly, hoping to lighten the mood. "So you can laugh at all the goofy faces I'll be making?" He bounced his hips a little. "'Cause you feel fucking fantastic, and you haven't even started moving yet."

"I can feel this, you know..." she said as she reached for his face, careful not to accidentally poke him in the eye as she brushed the back of her fingers against his damp cheek. He'd been crying.

Reaching up, he grabbed her hand and held it to his face, before then bringing it over to his mouth and kissing the back of her hand.

"Damn, your empathic powers are strong," he chuckled.

"Only with you," she confessed. "Because you're so focused on _me_ , so instead of like...like just overhearing a conversation people might be having amongst themselves, with you, it's like you're shouting your feelings at me."

"They're tears of joy," he assured her then.

"I know...and I feel the same way."

She kissed him again, and then gripping his shoulders to steady herself, she moved her legs, shifting them so that she was squatting over him, both of her feet flat on the couch cushions on either side of his thighs. Then, with her hands still on his shoulders for leverage, she started raising herself up and down. His hands were back on her waist, but he let her control her movements at her own pace.

For the next minute or so all was quiet, except for the occasional muffled grunts, growls and whimpers he tried and failed not to vocalize. Finally, she said, "You don't have to stay quiet for my sake. Now that I _know_ you're canine, and I know there are no lower, _animal_ dogs in here, I'll know the sounds are you and I won't be afraid of them. Be yourself."

"If I were _really_ going to be myself, I'd flip us over and pound you into oblivion."

His straining, gravelly voice combined with _what_ he said sent a fresh wave of tingles washing over her body. Holding still a moment, she brazenly asked, "Who's stopping you?"

The next thing Kagome knew, her back was on the couch, her ass was in the air, strong hands were gripping her hips in a tight but not painful grasp, and the most mind numbing, violent pleasure she'd ever experienced was wracking her entire frame as he moved faster than a human man would be capable of moving. He was unrelenting, untiring, and she screamed in pleasure from the onslaught.

He was far from silent. He had _roared_ as he'd turned them over, like a hunter capturing his prey, and if it hadn't been for his previous insecurities Kagome would've wondered in that moment if that's what she was. He'd had her in his sights, and he'd captured her. But _she_ was the one who'd walked into the lion's den; she'd had to convince him that she wanted to be his prey, but now that he _was_ convinced she could tell he was never going to let her go...and she would never want him to.

A second climax, this one of a different nature, rushed up on her out of nowhere, and she screamed so loud his ears pinned back against his head. As she began trembling uncontrollably below him, Inuyasha didn't resist or attempt to hold it at bay when he felt his own climax on the approach, and as it hit him he _howled_ his release, as his hips locked and he held himself as tightly against her as possible.

He knelt frozen like that for a moment or three, and for a second Kagome wondered if he was going to start moving again, but then finally, he pulled away from her, lowering her lower half to the couch. She immediately reached up for him, found his arm, and tugged him down. He went willingly, lying down stretched out on top of her, and she hooked her legs around his own while her left hand rested on his back and her right hand found his left ear, stroking gently.

"I love you," she murmured quietly after a moment. It was no big revelation at that point, but something she'd still felt the need to say.

"I love you, too," he replied, for the same reason. Then thinking about something, he laughed.

"What's so funny?" His amusement was enough to trigger her own, a chuckle escaping her lips before she even knew what the joke was.

"I just realized I'm _really_ glad it's around midday on Monday, so my neighbors are all at work, otherwise the taijiya would probably be breaking my door down around now, someone having called them convinced there was a youkai beast in here murdering some innocent young woman."

She chuckled again at the thought, then said with a teasing edge, "Hmmm, that's not far from the truth."

"You asked for it," he pointed out.

"Yes, yes I did, and I'm grateful. I want you to know you can always be yourself with me."

"Keep talking like that and I'm going to start crying again."

"That's okay, too."

He kissed her, and the depth of emotion she could feel from him told her everything she needed to know.

"So do I get to keep you?" he asked her after after a moment, still lying stretched out on top of her. "Or do I have to return you to your family?"

"I can stay for a while, call Mama and let her know I'm visiting 'cause we worked everything out, but I should probably go home sometime today, unfortunately," she replied honestly. "Gotta go to work tomorrow and I'll need a shower and a change of clothes."

"You can shower here," he offered. "Master bathroom has a nice soaking tub and everything."

"Mmm, that sounds lovely. But I'd still need a change of clothes." Thinking about it a moment, she said, "But at some point in the not too distant future I'll _definitely_ take you up on that. I love me a good bath."

"Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future, you'll be moving in with me," he replied shyly.

"That's my intention," she confirmed, putting that mild worry of his to rest. "But I can't just up and move out of my home _right_ away. Even though I don't need my family's permission to marry you, 'cause this is the 21st century, it'd be nice if they got to know you better, for their own peace of mind."

She could feel his worry starting to grow again, so then she assured him, "They already know you're hanyou. I told Mama everything yesterday as soon as I got home, and she immediately didn't have a problem with it. Even teased me about puppy grandchildren," she said, which had him blushing. "Then last night we told my brother and grandfather, together. Jii-chan wasn't _thrilled_..." she said with in a disappointed tone of voice, "...but he ultimately gave me his blessing, saying that he knew I was a good judge of character, especially with my sixth sense restored, and so if I was happy, he was happy for me."

"That's amazing. I was worried your grandfather would try to purify me or something when he found out."

Kagome laughed again at that.

"My grandfather might be a bit set in his ways, but this isn't the Feudal era, and he's the one who taught me _not_ to be racist towards youkai growing up. We're all just different beings put here by the kami. How can it be right of people who profess to serve the kami to harbor hatred and prejudice towards other beings that also belong to the kami?"

"Your grandfather sounds very wise."

Finally getting up off of Kagome, because it was starting to be awkward having such a serious conversation while still lying naked and sweaty on top of her, he gathered up her clothes for her and helped her stand so she could get dressed when she joked that her legs felt like jello. Once they were both fully dressed, Kagome retrieved her phone from her skirt pocket and dialed home.

Without going into details that were nobody's business, Kagome told her mother that she and Inuyasha had talked, had gotten the misunderstanding all sorted out, and that not only were they back together as an official couple, he'd just asked her to marry him, and she'd already said yes.

Mrs. Higurashi was beyond happy for her daughter, and told Kagome that she could visit with him as long as she wanted, when Kagome told her she'd be staying over at his place for a while before he brought her home, and she also told her daughter that he was welcome – read, expected – to stay and visit for a while when he did.

Deciding not to worry about _that_ until the time came, once Kagome hung up the phone, Inuyasha asked her if she was hungry.

"It ain't as good as the stuff Sango makes, but I have a cupboard full of instant ramen if you'd be okay with that?"

"Sounds perfect."

They visited for hours, talking about everything and nothing. They took turns telling stories about their childhoods, quizzed each other regarding their likes and dislikes, and Inuyasha even took her on a tour of his luxury apartment, taking the time to describe each room in vivid detail. Finally, a little before dinnertime at the Higurashi residence, Inuyasha drove Kagome home.

He was nervous about walking on hallowed ground in his hanyou form, but Kagome assured him that only the main shrine building had wards on it that would prevent anyone with demonic blood from entering. Sure enough, when he walked with her up the shrine steps, he could feel how incredibly powerful the land was, like being in the presence of a powerful reiki user, but it did not reject him.

As Kagome put it, reiki and youki were not automatically opposing forces, which was why a reiki wielder life-boned to a youkai, who would then have their partner's youki running through their system as a result, could also still channel and use their reiki. That reminder had him longing to find a way to restore her reiki so that _they_ could do the bonding, a longing that Kagome could feel from him and also shared, herself, and squeezing his hand she told him quietly that they would find a way. She had brand new determination.

Making it to her family's home, they quickly agreed that it was a topic for another time, unless her mother or grandfather actually asked them about it.

Mrs. Higurashi was delighted to meet the _real_ Inuyasha when they arrived, of course, Kagome not bothering to knock but instead just opening the door wide with a call of "I'm home!"

Removing his sandals in the genkan, he was not barefoot as he'd thought beforehand to put on a pair of tabi socks. He'd also thrown on a gray outer robe over his white kosode, though he'd left his hair loose, not tied back, and as Kagome's grandfather looked him up and down next, the holy man nodded his approval as Inuyasha executed a formal bow to the Higurashi elder.

Souta was just as easy to please. He simply asked Inuyasha if his inner youkai had chosen Kagome – everyone in the room knew what _that_ meant – and he unabashedly answered that yes, yes it had.

That had actually been one of the things he and Kagome had discussed earlier, when she'd asked him about the deep seeded protectiveness she could feel from him. It'd come out that he had been the one following Kagome the day he'd accidentally let Kikyou sense him, which had Kagome briefly thinking she owed Kikyou an apology, despite the other woman's blatant bigotry. He'd actually admitted to following her every day, then, ever since she'd told him about nearly missing her bus, and instead of being disturbed by the information, she'd found it hopelessly romantic, because she understood the psyche of inu-youkai and understood what it really meant for him to care about her so deeply.

She'd then told Inuyasha that if he was going to insist on continuing to follow her that he may as well just drive her to work. He'd already offered to, and at first she'd politely turned him down, only from a place of not wanting to inconvenience him. He had a business to run, after all, which required his presence at an earlier time in the morning than when she left for work. That was when he'd confessed to already leaving the noodle shop that time of day, anyway, which had had Kagome ultimately conceding that she'd rather he drove her then, because who actually _liked_ taking the bus?

In that moment, in the Higurashi household, Inuyasha discussed it with Kagome's mother, asking if it'd be all right for him to show up there in the mornings to take Kagome to work. Mrs. Higurashi didn't have a problem with it, of course. At first he said he could just wait for Kagome down at the bottom of the shrine steps, so as not to risk disrupting any holy services that might be going on, but waving off his concern, Atsuko assured him that he was family now and more than welcome at the family home any time he wanted.

The rest of their visit went just as smoothly, Kagome's mother insisting that he stay for dinner, which he gladly did because it meant being in Kagome's presence that much longer. When he finally left for the night he and Kagome shared a quick, chaste goodbye kiss, with his promise that he'd be back in the morning to take her to work.

He was right on schedule, of course, and also brought Kagome back home again at the end of her shift. The rest of the week went by much the same way, the only morning he didn't see her being Sunday, since she was off and therefore didn't need a ride to work. They made up for it that night, though, as he finally took her out on their belated second date, to Aka Ryu. She'd also surprised and delighted him by having an overnight bag packed, so after dinner he took her back to his place, not to be returned home until the following evening.

Feeling a little guilty about disappearing from the bus stop for a whole week without explanation, not that she _really_ thought Kikyou cared – though of course, she honestly had no idea if the woman cared or not because she hadn't yet been around the older miko with her ability to sense souls restored – Kagome wanted to head down to the bus stop the following morning to let Kikyou, and the bus driver, know that she was alive and well.

At first Inuyasha wondered if that meant she just wanted to walk to the bus like old times that Tuesday morning, and he had been prepared to follow her again, and from a safe distance so as not to be detected, but then with her head held high Kagome told him she wanted him to _walk_ her to the bus stop. She wasn't planning on actually using the bus; she just wanted to talk to Kikyou and the driver real quick, and then he could take her to work in his car.

After Kikyou's initial reaction to just the feel of a youkai nearby, Kagome was admittedly expecting lip from the woman, but also thinking about the bus drivers – whichever driver this one was, she would just ask him to please let the other one know, so this trip was definitely a one and done – she wanted to do this despite whatever Kikyou's reaction was going to be, for her own peace of mind. Plus, Kagome would admit it, there was a part of her that wanted to throw her relationship with Inuyasha in the other miko's face.

As they approached the bus stop, though, Kikyou's reaction to their arrival was not what either of them had been expecting.

Instead of feeling shock or disgust at the sight of them coming up the road, Kikyou almost seemed panicked.

"She smells afraid," Inuyasha murmured quietly around the same time Kagome started feeling it.

She could sense it from a greater distance than normal because, just like with Inuyasha, Kikyou was actually focusing on her, projecting her emotions at her, and it instantly made Kagome regret this decision. She hadn't wanted to _frighten_ Kikyou. Had Kikyou been attacked at some point, too, and was now also traumatized because of it?

"You're not walking behind me in a way that looks like you're stalking me without my notice, are you?" Kagome asked him quietly, while they were still out of Kikyou's hearing range.

Because it was rather forward to hold hands in public, and they were earning enough 'looks' as it was, Inuyasha was walking beside and slightly behind Kagome while she swept the sidewalk with her cane like she normally did.

"If you couldn't sense my emotions and didn't know I was here, would you know I was here?" he asked, and she knew what he meant. He was right next to her, his sandals slapping on the sidewalk; of _course_ she'd know someone was there.

As they got close enough for Kikyou to hear them, the woman looking frozen to the spot while she stared at Inuyasha, Kagome called out, "I didn't mean to scare you. In fact, I was worried _you_ might have been worried about my absence last week, so I wanted to let you know I was okay."

Kikyou snapped out of her stupor, then, but didn't seem to fully process what Kagome said.

"Kagome..." she began cautiously. "Don't make any sudden moves."

 _Okay, first of all, I'm right fucking here_ , Inuyasha groused in his mind. Did Kikyou think he was just an animal that didn't understand their language or what?

But before he could say anything, Kagome beat him too it.

"Oh for the love of... Kikyou, meet my _fianc_ _é_ , Inuyasha Taisho."

Condescendingly, he bowed.

Kikyou snapped her eyes to Kagome at the title.

"Your _what?_ "

Kagome shrugged, and decided to play innocent.

"I know we've only gone on a couple of official dates, but we've actually been friends for a couple of years now, so..." She let her words trail off as she shrugged again.

"Kagome...I think you have been deceived," Kikyou said in her version of tact.

" _Act_ ually, I can't be deceived," Kagome revealed then. "Not any longer, at least. All of my miko abilities have been locked away since I was attacked by the inugami that blinded me, but a little over a week ago I suddenly regained my ability to sense a person's soul. I'm hopeful my ability to sense and use reiki will follow suit.

Kikyou felt completely shocked by this revelation, which wasn't surprising since she'd never even known Kagome was a miko. Kagome had also wanted to reveal the part about her being attacked to let Kikyou know that if that was where her fear was coming from, she understood.

Kikyou was not a survivor, though. She'd just grown up in a racist household hearing bedtime stories of the big bad youkai.

"You...you are a miko, and still plan on m-marrying this...this..."

"Inu-hanyou," Inuyasha provided in a sarcastic tone of voice.

He immediately noticed it when Kikyou suddenly didn't feel quite as afraid anymore, and quietly he wondered if it was perhaps only pure youkai that bothered her – and the strength of his youki had had her assuming he was one – while learning that he was half human now actually made her feel a little bit better, like he had a human soul or something. He could not sense the growing determination within her because there was no malicious intent behind it, which would have made her smell like danger.

It made Kagome nervous as hell, though, which he definitely noticed, which put his instincts on high alert, which made his spiritual hackles raise, which made Kikyou even more determined to immediately follow through with her plan before the bus arrived and, with it, witnesses.

"Hanyou, you say? Then it is not impossible to purge you of your taint."

Inuyasha felt it, then, as the miko's reiki built up, but there was no time to react.

Kagome felt it, too, via Inuyasha, because she suddenly felt _his_ fear and coupled with Kikyou's words that could only mean one thing.

"Kikyou, no!" Kagome screamed, just as the other miko's determination shifted into satisfaction. It was too late.

But then, nothing happened, and Kagome was flooded with shock from both Inuyasha _and_ Kikyou, the latter also feeling afraid again.

"You tried to purify me," Inuyasha said then, sounding more in awe than dangerously pissed off. For all the prejudice he'd had to face so far in his life, he'd never been treated like a lower youkai beast before. He'd really only been teasing when he'd told Kagome he had been worried her grandfather would try to purify him. That Kikyou actually _had?_ That was unfathomable.

"I tried to cleanse you, to free you of your youkai taint," Kikyou argued, sounding as afraid as she felt, like she thought Inuyasha was going to retaliate now that she'd been unable to render him harmless.

Ignoring her, Kagome asked her fiancé "How did you block her attack?"

Smirking, feeling amusement she could sense from him, Inuyasha leaned down and whispered in her ear, "I didn't. _You_ did."

"What?!"

With her shock, the barrier she'd thrown up around the both of them popped out of existence, but when it broke, the remaining seal on her powers broke with it. Gasping and stumbling, Inuyasha caught her easily, and he didn't have to ask her if she was okay this time because he could easily sense just how okay she really was. Her reiki was much stronger than Kikyou's, which it'd needed to be in order to stop the other miko's attack, and the way Kikyou was now staring at Kagome with her mouth hanging open told him that she could sense it, too.

The bus showed up right then, and quietly, Inuyasha told Kikyou that if she ever tried that shit again, he'd press charges. It was an empty threat, really, since he had no intention of ever seeing her again, and was really more of a declaration that he _wasn't_ going to press charges _this_ time, but the only reason why was because, ultimately, she hadn't harmed him.

That, and the fact that her little stunt had ended up unlocking the rest of Kagome's powers, and all because Kagome had suddenly gotten that guilty feeling about disappearing from her daily bus route without saying goodbye.

The kami worked in mysterious ways.

When the bus door opened, Kagome ignored Kikyou and greeted the driver, who was thankfully one of the regulars as he immediately said "Kagome! I missed you last week."

She told him then, very briefly so as not to hold them up, that she was doing great but wouldn't be riding the bus anymore, because her fiancé was going to be giving her rides to work from now on. The driver could see Inuyasha just fine through the open door, and all he said was "Good man," with a friendly nod. Now that Kagome had her sixth sense back, she knew the driver actually did care for her, in a protective, fatherly sort of way – he wasn't just pretending to be nice – and harboring no prejudice in his heart, he was genuinely happy for her.

They left, then, letting Kikyou get on the bus in peace. Heading back to the shrine, where Inuyasha had parked his car, they got in his car and headed to work for the day, Inuyasha dropping her off right in front of Hojo's Holistic Healing before heading up to Mushin's Noodles.

The rest of the week went by uneventfully. With Hojo and her family all easily able to sense the return of Kagome's reiki, they took turns helping her with a few exercises to regain the ability to fully control her powers. Much like with the return of her ability to read souls, though, it had really only been overwhelming at first, and pretty soon, just like with riding a bicycle, it all came back to her.

Now that they could, she and Inuyasha were eager to do the bonding, but there was no way they'd be able to sleep apart after that, while likewise, her grandfather would never approve of her moving in with him without being properly wed, and while he couldn't _really_ forbid it, Kagome loved and respected her grandfather and wanted to do right by her family's honor.

Since Christmas was rapidly approaching, it might have seemed a bit rushed, but they planned for a Christmas Eve wedding.

During all the craziness, Inuyasha did not forget to tell his mother the good news, of course.

He'd previously told her about Kagome with hesitant optimism back when he'd first asked Kagome out on that first date, and while he thankfully hadn't revealed the truth depth of his assholitry to his mother, he _had_ told her, with much disappointment, when he'd been convinced it couldn't work out between them. Just like Sango and Miroku, Izayoi had told her son that he still needed to tell Kagome the truth about what he was, so that she could then decide for herself whether or not she wanted to be with him, rather than him just deciding _for_ her.

He'd told his mother after that first Monday at his apartment that he and Kagome had worked everything out and were together, as well as the fact that she'd gotten her ability to sense souls back, without telling her the exact nature of how that'd come about. Happiliy telling her later when Kagome regained her other powers, and of their upcoming wedding plans, he then brought Kagome over to meet his mother in person, and she and Izayoi immediately hit it off.

He even called up his father around the same time, not that he expected the daiyoukai to come to the wedding, and indeed Toga Taisho said that he would not be attending, but briefly, he did also tell his son that he was happy for him, that he had found someone to love. When Inuyasha informed him that they planned on doing the soul-bond, Toga not-so-cryptically stated that in that case, he looked forward to _one day_ meeting Kagome.

With everything figured out, there wasn't much left to do but wait for Christmas to arrive.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

It was a beautiful twilight wedding.

Wanting to do it on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas day, Inuyasha had simply closed Mushin's Noodles early that evening, so that Sango and Miorku could attend the reception, along with Miroku's uncle Mushin and Sango's brother Kohaku whom Inuyasha had met a few times. Izayoi attended the actual wedding ceremony with Kagome's family, which was held on the shrine grounds at the base of a sacred tree called the Goshinboku. It was the same spot where Kagome's mother had married her father.

That night, back at Inuyasha's apartment, which was officially her home too, now – he'd help her with moving all her things the next day – Kagome and Inuyasha made love in their bed, not for the first time, but the first time with that bed belonging to _both_ of them.

"Are you ready?" he asked her between kisses while buried snugly within her wet heat.

"Absolutely."

He could scent no nervousness in her, and likewise, Kagome knew he had no doubts. He was her husband now; they were already promised to each other for as long as they both shall live, so the only thing left to do was to make sure that, from Inuyasha's point of view, her life wasn't cut short ridiculously early. She felt it then, as his youki began to grow exponentially. He'd already felt as strong as a full-blooded youkai, but now, bringing his inner beast to the surface like that made him feel like a daiyoukai.

 _Damn_... Kagome thought, genuinely impressed.

Not permitting her thoughts to wander, she quickly got her head back in the game, and summoned up her own reiki energy, as well. She'd been practicing, and could once again conjure up the balls of energy into her hands like she'd used to be able to do, so her abilities were at full strength. She and Inuyasha had read the how-to's in youkai medical texts, and even though she was dealing with reiki instead of youki, the principle was the same. As the weaker partner, she had to allow her aura to _submit_ to his, which might have been hard for some reiki users to do, to allow youki to envelop them without instinctively fighting back, but it wasn't hard for Kagome because she loved everything about this man and gladly welcomed his very being into her heart and soul.

Picking up the tempo of his love making, then, Inuyasha instructed Kagome to pleasure herself, because it was important that they both reach their peak at the same time, and he could tell that he was close. Complying without hesitation, because she could also tell that he was close thanks to her gift, Kagome caught up with him in short order, focusing on nothing but how much she loved him and wanted to be bonded to him. Keeping herself suspended on the edge with teasing strokes of her clit, because she knew well what her body liked best, she wanted for the moment she felt Inuyasha tumble over that edge and quickly jumped in after him.

He cried out as his orgasm hit him, and at the same time, he focused his mental energies on the woman lying below him, snagging on to her aura and wrapping it around himself like spiritually yanking her into a hug. Feeling the mental equivalent of her hugging him back, he kept them both like that for what seemed like eternity but in reality was only around a minute, his body shuddering as he emptied his entire being within her, both physically and spiritually.

At least they didn't have to worry about her getting pregnant from this encounter, since he was more than capable of siring hanyou children in that state, but shortly after her accident Kagome had gone on the pill simply to help regulate her cycle – it had been much easier to deal with something so mundane when she didn't have to worry about surprises – and as a result they had thankfully been free to do the bonding right away without first needing to wait a couple months for a new prescription to take effect. They both wanted children, but they also both wanted to enjoy married life for a while, first.

Especially now that they'd have _centuries_ to plan a family, although Kagome had promised her mother she'd give her 'puppy-eared grandchildren' while Atsuko was still young enough to spoil them rotten.

Because Kagome could already sense emotions in everyone, anyway, she didn't notice much of a change, at first, except she definitely noticed it when both her hearing and sense of smell seemed to increase. For his part, Inuyasha also became much more aware of Kagome's feelings, far beyond what his canine nose could deduce. And unlike her normal range limitations, she would now be able to sense _Inuyasha's_ emotions from anywhere, no matter the distance between them, and in fact use that sense as a guide to find him, like a spiritual homing beacon. One of the main reasons this bonding was hardly done anymore was because it required absolute devotion beyond a shadow of a doubt; betrayal would be impossible, now, because not only would the other person instantly know it, the actual act of cheating would cause the adulterer physically manifested pain caused by their own subconscious, to mirror the emotional pain their betrayal would be causing their partner. And if one of them died before they had any children, they would both die, because their life forces were tied together now, but the natural bond between parent and child was strong enough to allow the widowed partner to live as an empty shell of themselves in order to care for their children, if need be, the survivor dying of a broken heart as soon as none of their offspring were dependent any longer.

These were all details Kagome had known going in, and she had no intention of dying for a _very_ long time. Inuyasha had sworn to protect her with his life even prior to them actually doing the bonding, and now, he was perfectly content to die with her should he fail to protect her because even if they weren't bonded he would've just killed himself for his failure, anyway.

Going to sleep snuggled up in each other's arms, it was the best night's sleep either of them had ever had.

o o o

The next day, they headed back over to the shrine, and Inuyasha helped Kagome pack up all of her clothing and other things. Mrs. Higurashi insisted they stay for lunch, of course, which they happily did, and then it was back to the apartment so that Inuyasha could surrender half of his closet space to his new wife and mate. It was a sacrifice he was happy to make.

He also ran out to KFC so they could get something descent to eat for dinner since he had little more than instant ramen and other similar products in his kitchen; sheepishly, he promised he'd bring home dinner from Mushin's Noodles from now on, plus extra food on Sundays to get them through Mondays when the restaurant was closed. Laughing, Kagome told Inuyasha that she would gladly eat food from the restaurant for dinner every night since it was all homemade and nutritious, plus it was what she already ate every day for lunch, anyway. She'd mix things up by getting something other than udon for dinner.

The next day at work, Kagome finally experienced what Inuyasha meant about being able to feel him no matter how far apart they were. It was as if he were right there in the room with her even though somehow, she could tell that he wasn't, and in fact she could tell how far away he was, just as easily as someone who could see would be able to see if someone were standing right next to them or across the room from them, but it was just something she felt on a spiritual level. It was hard to explain, but Kagome found that it was not hard to get used to.

The rest of the week went by in much the same as the previous week, except now that she was _married_ to Inuyasha, when he picked her up at the end of her shift at the herb shop he drove her home to their apartment. He'd occasionally walk her up and make sure she was settled before heading back to work, if there was something he needed to take care of, but Miroku and Sango were more than capable of closing the shop by themselves at the end of the night so more and more, he started letting them do just that.

He didn't give them additional responsibilities, though. If he didn't want to leave Kagome on a particular evening he told them to just lock up when they were done and he'd take care of 'closing' the till the following morning before they opened for business. Which of course meant he had to head to work earlier in the morning than Kagome did, but it was no big deal for him to leave for a little while after Mushin's Noodles was up and running for the day to pick up his wife and take her to her own place of business.

 _My wife..._

He was never going to not have a goofy grin on his face when he said those two little words.

On their one week anniversary, Inuyasha couldn't help but notice when Kagome kept scratching at her eyes as they prepared for bed, and he could feel through their bond that they were itching.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned, when the tingling didn't go away.

"I...I think so...but my eyes feel funny. They've never itched like this before."

Inuyasha's sudden elation had Kagome snapping her head up to look in his general direction.

"You don't think..." she began, not daring to hope.

"You ended up getting all your miko powers back because of me," he said. "Maybe the kami really _did_ bring us together for a very important reason."

"I'm happy just to have you," she said then, not wanting to get her hopes up only to then be disappointed, "and the fact that I also got my powers back was icing on the cake."

"Still, if your eyes are still bothering you tomorrow I'll take you to the doctor, just in case it's unrelated and something that should be looked at. Since it's Monday you don't even have to worry about calling off work."

"Good idea."

That night, Inuyasha was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of Kagome hissing in pain.

"Kagome?!"

"I'm okay..." she assured him, as her shock slowly gave way to elation of her own. "I just...I just _saw_ something. Really bright, blue light. It was just a blob, and it hurt my eyes."

"The nightstand clock," he said right away, turning it around to face away from him.

"My eyes are definitely healing, then."

"And we're definitely going to the doctor tomorrow morning. It'll probably be painful for you, at first, so even with your shades you might want to keep your eyes closed."

The next morning, despite his advice, she dared a few peeks during the drive, but hissing every time, she slammed her eyelids back closed again. She couldn't really _see_ anything, just blindingly bright light, but that definitely had to be a sign that her eyes were healing, which the doctor confirmed after it was finally her turn to be seen. The human doctor admittedly didn't know all that much about youkai healing, not that Inuyasha could truly fault him when it hadn't even occurred to _him_ that a life bond could cure an old, preexisting injury, but a simple visual inspection revealed that Kagome's eyes looked better than they previously had, and not only that, the surrounding scar tissue was also healing.

Inuyasha swore to bring her in for regular checkups, which he did.

It wasn't long before Kagome's eyes had black pupils again, which responded to the light when the doctor shined that tiny flashlight in them, making Kagome hiss in discomfort every time though she wasn't really complaining. A few days later, she could see the world as a series of out of focus blobs, but the light no longer hurt and she could keep her eyes open without immediately tearing up.

Then finally, one morning, when she opened her eyes it dawned on her that the dimly lit bedroom in the pre-dawn light was completely in focus.

Bolting upright into a sitting position, the action startled Inuyasha awake beside her, who immediately looked at her with the most beautifully concerned golden yellow eyes she'd ever seen.

The way she was looking at him had her name freezing on his tongue, since he had been about to ask her what was wrong. But she was actually _looking_ at him, and then he knew that nothing was wrong. Everything had never been more _right_.

"You really _are_ handsome," she said then, smiling. "I mean, well, you were a handsome blob before..." They both chuckled. "...but I...I can _see_..."

Reaching up, she touched his face, and her eyes started tearing up, then, but it had nothing to do with the light of the room stinging them. Reaching up with his own hand to hold her palm to his cheek, Inuyasha closed his eyes before he started crying, himself. A moot gesture since she could sense his emotional reaction loud and clear. After a moment, he found his voice.

"Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

"Yes," she answered. "Yes I do. And you know what? I love you, too."

"I know."

That said, they each leaned in, meeting each other halfway in a slow, tender kiss, which led to so much more. At one point, Inuyasha called Miroku and told him he'd worry about balancing the tills later. With Miroku and Sango each having their own key they could go in and fire up the kitchen by themselves, and with the cash register being an older style that worked more like an adding machine than a computer it wasn't anything Inuyasha couldn't sort out later if they went ahead and kept ringing on yesterday's till.

Kagome also called out of work once the herb shop opened, and Hojo was more than understanding. Today needed to be about them.

When they eventually left the bedroom, Inuyasha gave Kagome a new tour of the apartment, and then after sharing an intimate shower, he took her shopping. She had understandably lost her enthusiasm for that particular activity, but now, he insisted upon taking her to all of her favorites stores, plus a few of his, daring her to max out his credit card which, in reality, actually didn't _have_ a spending limit. They both also knew that Kagome wasn't even really that way, but he wanted to spoiler her, and just for today, she would let him. She'd never gotten to pick out a wedding ring, after all. A western custom that hadn't been a part of their Shinto ceremony, but was nevertheless a fabulous excuse to wear a beautiful diamond ring. He bought her a lot more than just one single ring, of course. It made Kagome giggle when the somewhat wary looks they got whenever they entered a fancy boutique disappeared the instant Inuyasha held up his credit card. It kind of reminded her of that old American movie Pretty Woman.

 _Don't judge a book by its cover_... she thought in a lecturing tone of voice to the various store clerks, but held her tongue and kept her smile as bright as ever.

She hadn't been able to judge Inuyasha by his appearance when she'd first met him, and now, even better than a knight in shining armor, she had a prince in shining...hair.

He quirked an eyebrow at her when he sensed her sudden amusement and waving it off, she just giggled again.

"I love the sound of your laugh," he told her then. "I'm looking forward to hearing it for the next thousand years."

Their lives settled into a steady routine after that. A few weeks after Kagome got her sight back, her boss and ex-boyfriend, Shin Hojo, got engaged himself to someone he had been seeing, and since Kagome didn't really _need_ her job anymore, she thanked him and his father sincerely for the help when she had needed it and let the future Mrs. Hojo take her place as the herb sorter.

Inuyasha also ended up hiring Mushin back to function as manager of his own former restaurant. The aging monk hadn't been enjoying life nearly as much at his new job, anyway, working it simply to earn money to pay the bills. When Inuyasha told him he wanted to be able to spend his days with Kagome instead of just living at the restaurant, since he wasn't a lonely bachelor anymore just looking for something to do every day to keep himself occupied, Mushin had jumped at the chance to come back to work at the only thing he'd ever really loved doing. With Mushin _just_ the manager, things like budgets and payrolls were not his concern, and if Inuyasha had to dump more of his own money into the place on occasion to keep it going if its profits were too low, he didn't care. His own monthly allowance was more than enough to handle that without him even having to dip into his ever-growing savings account.

At first, Inuyasha still picked up lunch and dinner for them from Mushin's Noodles, but with Mushin's blessing, Sango taught Kagome the various 'secret' recipes, and she soon began duplicating them at home for the two of them, now that she could cook again. Of course, Inuyasha didn't mind experimenting with the recipes, such as using Kagome's naked body to slurp his noodles off of. She definitely added a few different flavors to the mix, but they were delicious, and so were the flavors Inuyasha added, Kagome found, when she took her turn sucking and licking. There was plenty of time to have a family, and also to get back into her career goals of being an active miko and nurse, but in the meantime, she was definitely looking forward to their _extended_ honeymoon stage. Life was good.

~ Fin ~


End file.
